Sweet Rose Tutorial

I adore the look of all the cabbage roses people make but I find them too bulky for a scrapbook album and they get easily crushed... so I decided to take inspiration from the Prima tea roses and create my own with an extra layer (and for about a tenth of the price, LOL!) that are a little more durable in an album.

You will need 3 two-inch punched flowers and 4 one-inch flowers. Any flower punch or die with separated petals will do. I used my retro flower punches (by EK Success). Ink for the edges, water to mist, glue, a foam mouse pad, three sizes of pen thickness with rounded ends (or paintbrushes) and glitter glue to polish off (if desired). If you want your flowers to look exactly like the Prima tea roses, then only use two large flowers. I like a more ruffled look.

Step 1: Ink all your flower edges, lightly water mist (or glimmer mist) them all and press the centers into the foam mat with a rounded pen end. Here is a close-up of a few. If you over wet them, they will rip in the next step.

Step 2: Cup the large ones around the end of your sharpie thickness item and roll against the side. Use the smallest sized pen for the smaller flowers. They should all look like this and now you let them dry 100% before moving on.

Step 3: Once all dry, roll a small flower between your thumb and index to create the bud center. Slightly open the 3 larger flowers and one small one. Glue the small ones into each other (opened one at the bottom) and set aside. Do the same with the large ones and remember to off-set the petals. Let glue dry completely before moving on.

Step 4: Once dry, gently fold back the petals of the large flower and then press the large glued flower into the mat with the mid sized pen to ensure the "cup" shape.

Step 5: Glue the center flower and arrange petals if necessary. Also, the center can be used as a flower on its own like you would a baby Prima rose (just add a green star punch to the bottom for the leaves). You can add another punched flower layer to the bottom for more fullness too.

Step 6: Once the glue dries, pinch each large petal to give it a realistic look. Some people may just prefer the perfect look above though.

Step 7: This part is optional depending on your project style... add glitter glue to the large petal edges for a dewey polished look and add leaves to the bottom. I just used a daisy flower punch and inked and pinched the ends. Martha Stewart makes a really nice rose leaf punch too.

That's it, you're done! Here is a close-up of the finished 2-inch diameter rose... the same size as a Prima tea rose!

To prove this works with any punch, here is the flower I just made beside two others I did with my Marvy brand 3 petal pansy punch (3 inch) and my McGill heart clover punch (2.5 inch). I used a pre-made rose for the pink center and my simple flower tutorial for the white center to better match the flower styles. Experiment and have fun with any die or punch you have. I bet some of you with the Tim Holtz tattered flower dies will end up with flowers looking like the new Prima sugarplum roses. And if you used 8-petal daisy punches/dies, you'd get a peony style flower.

Thanks for stopping by and remember to leave some love if you like these. Also, if you happen to give these a go, I would love to see your results. All I ask is that when possible you give credit where due to any artist's tutorial because they do take a bit of effort to do. Thank you.

Scrap That! October Reveal

It's the 26th, my favorite day of the month - our Scrap That! design team reveal! This was a really cool kit called "Autumn Rain" to work with. The combination of fall/rustic colors in the Scribble Scrabble "sweet shoppe" papers with awesome G45 "steampunk" papers. Love the rust and teal in this kit with the punch of black embellies.

For my first layout "Life's beautiful", this is my mother-in-law in her twenties, just before having three boys. How cool is it that the October kit features acid-free doilies and shabby flowers from my Etsy shop products? (http://www.etsy.com/shop/vickyalberto). I used chalk ink to lightly brush color on the doily and twigs from a flower arrangement in my house (nobody will miss them, LOL). The butterfly is gorgeous Prima.

Design Tip: Add a string at the bottom of a circle design to anchor the page so your circle doesn't look like it is "floating".

For my second layout "Real Life", this is my dad with my mother's father in the kitchen - many moons ago. I just love this real rustic picture of them. OK, so we got this cool piece of cork in the kit and I used my nails to pick the edge off to make it look jagged. We also got a cool feather and Prima flower. I made my layout look like a journal by adding chipboard and lace from my stash.

Design Tip: Use walnut ink spray to stain your chipboard and lace for a beautiful matte finish on heritage layouts.

For my third layout "sixteen", that's my mom. When I saw the whacky G45 paper I knew immediately that this picture was perfect - you'd have to know my mother to understand. I used the ribbon flowers and Prima centers to create the black skirt and kept the rest of the design simple to let the picture shine amongst the chaotic paper.

Design tip: Play up the paper design by making elements into 3D features.

Lastly, I paired my leftover papers and embellies from the kit with a G45 "Le Romantique" paper. The black die cut in the kit is Kaisercraft. I did some fussy cutting and inserted the picture of my mom and dad at their engagement party so that it blends with the papers. I also used my hole punch to make the white edge mimic the stamp images on the paper (used an original picture since the scan looked too "new" for these papers). The four peach roses are handmade. Check back here this week for a rose tutorial.

Design tip: Make your own flowers to match your layout out of coordinating pattern paper in the collection.

Here is a close-up of one of the mini roses.

Well, don't forget to check out the rest of the design team's work at http://scrapthat.ning.com and thanks for looking!