paper flowers

 Warning - making these flowers is addictive!

As I had a request from friends on Chocolate Baroque for details, here they are - there are also loads of other blogs with similar flowers, think the best one I found was this one from Carole (took me a while to work out how I got there).

Anyway, I used the two smaller flowers from the Tin Holtz tattered florals die, and a daisy centre from a Woodware punch - I originally used a flower from a crealies die, but that was a little too small and I could only cut one at a time, the punch is a better size and quicker. I used 3 of each size for these, more is fine but less doesn't seem to work very well. The card is an odd sheet I had, about 180gsm I think - anything from 160 gsm seems to be better than paper, as they get quite wet!Layer the pieces up, twisting each layer round a bit as you go and fasten together with a brad- you can move them around as you do them, so it doesn't matter if they are all lined up originally. The you need to spray the flower with water, and start to scrunch up the layers. You need to do each layer individually, scruch hard and spray again before each layer - second pic shows the scrunching. When I got to the bigger pieces, I found it easier to squish each petal in half   before scrunching it. Once you have run out of layers to scrunch, the delicate bit starts - this is where you need the pokey tool and patience - start teasing the layers apart, working around the flower layer by layer; you need to be careful as the card will be wet and fairly fragile!  Just tease outt he petals until you get a result you are happy with, then leave to dry - after it is dry. it can be sprayed with something like glimmer mists or with a glitter varnish, so a good chance to change the colour of that card you always hated but got in a bundle................

Just remember that all flowers are different, so they are all different shapes and sizes, identical ones don't exist in nature, so no reason why they should do so in craft!