I've got sunshine on a cloudy day! Actually, I'm in Florida so we rarely have those days, but for those of you who do, you can bring a little sunshine to your miniature scenes with some little pretty yellow flowers. The picture below is the finished product that I made today:
Jolee's by You is a brand of 3 dimensional stickers for scrapbooking that have
lots of mini uses. They even have the right scale fabric dresses, football uniforms, the works! The picture below is how my yellow flowers came packaged; flat and 1 color, but just right in size!
Flat just will not do! It's time to get out the round tipped stylus and add some dimension to bring these pretty flowers to life! Here's how it's done:
- First, you will need a stylus (or something rounded like it) that you can press into the paper without tearing it.
- Then you will need to have a soft surface that has a little "give" to it so that when you press the paper, it will cup into the surface. I used a scrap of craft foam but an old mouse pad is great for this!
- Flip the flower upside down and press into the back of each petal. Play around with this step to get just the right amount of bend in each petal. Flip it over and your petals are beginning to take shape!
Before............................ After
Next you will want to add color. (You can do this earlier, if you like.) I really played around with this step. I found that paint was too wet and changed the texture of the paper. Chalk pastels were too dry and didn't add much. But
wet chalk pastels? They were just right! I dipped my tiny paintbrush in water, rubbed it on a chalk and got a sort of a water color texture that wasn't
too wet. See how messy the bottom flower looks? That's from the paint... not good.
The petals were still just a bit flat still, so out came my trusty stylus again. This time I
pressed it right in the middle and made a tight circle motion, swirling around several times right in the center. As I did this, the layers of petals started to separate and lift and became (I thought) more real.
Time to make the centers of the flowers. Flashy gold foil centers weren't going to cut it for me. :) I wanted the centers to be
dimensional and a little fuzzy so I looked around my work area and found green felt. I didn't mind a
little green showing but I pounced some red and yellow paint on it to change the color to my liking. I then took out my hole punch from scrapbooking and punched out holes in the green-now-reddish felt to make my centers. A little dab of tacky glue completed that step.
Last, it was time to add stems and leaves. I know some talented people in blog land that are wonderful at using floral tape and wire; I am NOT one of those people! In my local craft store I found a fake floral arrangement that had leaves like the ones below. I simply cut it apart into sections, snipping just below each pair of leaves. That gave me 2 leaves and a length of stem above it! Wow, that was easy! I trimmed the leaf length a little, put a dab of glue at the top of the stem and put the flower on top.
Voila! Easy flowers and a little sunshine for my mini house. Have a wonderful day!
This little three legged table just flew together although still unfinished too. It is a round piece of wood, veneer that I cut with scrapbooking scissors and the ends of three bamboo chopsticks.
This little girl's trunk is far from finished but I'm having fun with the girly details. I may make a tutorial on the easiest way to make a decorative paper box like in the bottom right of this trunk, if anyone's interested.
The shelf laying on its side was fun too! I used easy to cut balsa for the curvy top and the bottom is made of part of a Michael's hutch. Now back to my corner hutch building...
