Loving the Shabby Flowers

 Hello...................Is it spring yet?  Well definitely not here in the upper mid-west.  We are in the 30's with flurries.  Yet last week we were sunny and 60 and the daffodils started popping up.  Poor things are so confused.

Talking about flowers, Shabby is my favorite. It reminds me of Victorian days and romance, and they are the easiest to make because they do not require perfection.  I prefer to make small one so I can place them on tags.  Which is also a favorite of mine.  Flat flowers are very cute and have their place (usually on cards for easy mailing) but shabby ones make you want to Oooo and Ahhh and touch.  Personally I do not like putting these on cards because they would probably get smashed in the mail.  Yes you could make a box envelope but that could get smashed to so I leave the flat ones for cards and my shabby ones for gift tags.

So what do you need for basic shabby flowers?  Well before I go on you might want a cup of coffee or tea as this is quite a lengthy post full of pictures.  As you saw in the previous flower post HERE all you really need is a couple circle punches in different sizes.  Then to go a step further from the past post, we do some stacking & glittering.  Then add into the game a couple different flower punches.  Pick your favorite light weight cardstock DSP.  Here's my start.

The 2 photos on the left show paper in the spitball form and how they look opened up.

Now glittering.  OMG!!!  My favorite activity!  Decided first I would use Mod Podge and this real chunky glitter.  I literally glopped alot of glue on these and alot of glitter.  Then left it all to dry before using a soft paint brush to swipe off excess glitter.  This chunky stuff is amazing!  It's really not glitter like you think.  It was in the Christmas section by the batting and fluff to put around Christmas Villages that people put up and I think it was called SNOW.  I bought a bag.  Super cheap and there is a ton of it.  I gave it to every one I knew that could use it and kept 3 mason jelly jars of the stuff for me. 

This type of Shabby Chic flowers are the absolute easiest ones to make with the least amount of supplies.  Even if you don't have a circle punch you can still make these by just cutting your own circles freehand.

Now if you want a little fancier you can use flower die's or flower punch's.  Not all of us have the dies but you can make similar looks with punch's so I thought I'd show you those too.

Above is exactly what I'll be using.  The first punch is a pinwheel punch.  I decided to add that one in at the last minute just because I thought it would make a cute flower but my main focus is really on the other 4.

First we have the leaf punch.  I punched out 8 leaves so that I could make a similar flower to the die that is to the right of the leaves.  Next is the 4&5 petal flower punch's which will be used to re-create a similar flower to the die set to the right of those punch's.

So it's all in the layering and shaping.  I first use a piece of fun foam and a ball style and gently rub the back side of each petal to give it a cup shape.  Then turn it over and on the right side I use the ball part of the style to press down the center giving shape to the flowers.  Each one is then staggered on top of another, creating a flower.  This is done with both the die cut ones and the punched ones and you will see they look quite similar. The leaf one is done a bit different.  The style is still used to cup the leaf but 4 leaves are lightly glue by the stems to form a X this is done twice.  Then the 2 X's are staggered together and glued.  Hope this makes sense.

Then you add pearls or beads to the centers and glitter them up and you have fancier flowers.

Aren't they pretty?  Now except for the top Blue flower which is the pinwheel punch, the flowers on the left are made with the punch's and the ones on the right are the die cut ones.  I think they turned out pretty similar so you see you don't need dies to make the fancier flowers.  Punch's work quite nicely.

Another easy and fancy flower are just made from circles.  Each flower requires one 1" circle and four 1 1/2" circles.  Fold as explained in the photo and when finished, glittered and pearl or other gem added they also make a pretty easy no die required flower.  These can also be made without a punch just by cutting 4 circles the same size and a much smaller one to glue the pieces to.

A real quick way to make some flowers for cards that you would like to have flat is to purchase a multi flower punch like the one in the next photo. Unless you already own some smaller flower punches.   This one is by Paper Studio's from Hobby Lobby.

Here I just punched some pink and blue flowers and did a couple layers using them.  Below I added some leaves and Stickles and you have some pretty, yet flat flowers that will with stand the mail.  I added a few other colors in the finished photo for ideas.

I suppose I should do another post of flower later as this post seems to be getting longer and longer lol.

So Til Next Time.................................................

HAPPY CARDING!