I love flowers…love…love…love! And the first thoughts the word:”spring” gives me, are flowers in white, purple, lillac and green – my favorites! So here I give to you: The best of spring – my version.
Type of project: Paper Flowers.
Occasion: Decor for a Confirmation/First Communion card.
Style: Romantic/Shabby Chic
Techniques used: Die cutting, Coloring (with all kinds of products) and Shaping. Embellishments/decoration: Micro beads, Half beads
Main colour: White/Purple/Lillac/Green
READ ALSO: WHIMSICAL STYLE
In Denmark young people at the age of 13-14 have the opportunity to be confirmed in the Danish State Church. With the Protestant confirmation ritual, the confirmand confirms her/his baptism and agrees to remain a member of the State Church. The confirmation is also understood as God’s confirmation of His promise to be with the confirmand. This ritual takes place in spring and since most young Danes chooses to be confirmed, confirmation are a big thing and then, the demand for confirmation cards also. And now it has hit me too, so I’m working on a very special card for a young girl.
Her grandmother wants a very romantic and lavish card with loads of flowers, butterflies and pearls. We agreed on a beautiful design paper from Stamperia as background and this will be my guiding star in my choices of color etc. When I start making such a card, the first thing I do, is to make flowers – loads of flowers.
I make all my flowers my self (to get them exactly as I want them – and then it’s fun). I use cardstock as base – mostly white. To be sure the flowers and branches/leafs all have the right nuance, I pull out my markers, inks and all my color sprayed pieces of cardstock to compare them with the design paper to choose the right ones. And then the flower making starts.
Every flower die, I own, gets a job and goes through my die cutter, but especially my rose dies and all my tiny flower dies gets hot, because I know from experience, that I use a lot of those flowers.
After die cutting, it’s color time. Some of the roses gets an edge coloring – either with sharp edges or more blended edges. Others get a bottom job, making the inner core of the rose darker. If you’ve never colored your flowers before, don’t worry about the coloring not being totally perfect. When you’ve rolled and shaped your roses, the small – and greater imperfections simpley doesn’t show.
Shimmer cardstock is also one of my favorites for flower making. The shimmer enhances the pretty shape of especially white and solid colored flowers.
READ ALSO: CREATING PATTERNS WITH YOUR DIES
Next step is shaping/modeling and assembling the flowers with my fingers, shaping tools and my cheap, old indispensable craft pick. I don’t relatere so much to manuals and to how the flower is supposed to be assembled, but put the parts together, which I think could make a pretty flower.
Finally it’s all about pearls. In this case all the beading is wished to be white mother-of-Pearl, which gives a precious and exquisite look. Still I colored the microbead center of one of the daisy-like flowers green with alcohol markers – and I actually liked it, so perhaps more of them will end up green.
And this leads me to the end of the main part of this confirmation card, – the flowers. I finish by coloring leafs and branches. I like the more lifelike and natural look, they get, when I hand color them instead of making them by solide colored cardstock.
Next time my article will be about the making of the rest of the card. For now I wish you such a happy-cosy time – perhaps while being your own paper flourist.
HeidiM
Heidi-Birgitte Mortensen is from Denmark. She has been writing for TPC since 2021. Heidi-Birgitte started paper crafting in 2016 and she makes cards, 3D and Mixed Media projects. Her paper projects are often made in Rustic, Vintage or Retro style.