Wrinkled Flower Coloured With Distress Ink Tutorial

Hello.
A few requests on how I made the large flower in my previous card.  This would be sooo...much easier if I have a camcorder..LOL, but since I don't here goes...

Not sure what to call the flower, but wrinkled flower is as good as any, I guess...LOL.

Materials:
white cardstock
flower dies/punches (preferably 5/6 petals)
distress ink pad and dabber
spray bottle filled with water
1/8-inch circle hand punch
piercing tool
medium size brad
half pearl

The paper I used is my basic white cardstock that I used for my cards, AC Cardstock 80 lb.--I think this is similar to your Bazzill cardstock.

You need some kind of flower dies or punches.  Doesn't matter which one as long a you have a succession of 4 different sizes.  I used Crealis Creative Flower No. 06 dies. A few other that comes to mind are the Spellbinders Rose Creations dies, Spellbinders Posy Patch dies, EK Success Retro Flower punches.  You only need one of each size, but if you want a fuller flower, you can include more layers.

With your distress ink pad (any colour you want) and dabber, dab some ink in the centre of each flower.   (I made my own dabber by wrapping a makeup sponge around a piece of dowel and tied it in place with a string--ingeneous, eh? LOL)

Stack the flowers together and punch a hole in the centre with your hand punch, or you can pierce a hole with your piercing tool.

Push the brad through the hole and secure the brad.  Arrange the layers so the petals are staggered.

By spraying water from your spray bottle, dampen the flower enough so you can see the colour from the ink start to spread/bleed.  I think I sprayed 3 spritzes at the back, 3 on the front and a few more between the 2nd and 3rd layers.

Starting with the smallest flower, bring the petals up around the brad.  I used my piercing tool for this one.  Do the same with the other layers.  And then scrunch/squeeze them together as shown below. Squeezing it tightly will give you the wrinkles and will further spread the ink.

With your piercing tool uncurl the petals one by one.

Shape the flower the way you want it to look when dry, eg. spread the petals if they are too scrunched up, curl the ends up a bit, etc. Let dry completely--this will take a while.

When completely dry, remove the brad.  Glue the layers together.

Place a large half pearl in the centre as your flower centre.  You can use other type of flower centres or even just leave the brad in place.

And voila!  You're done!!!


Here are pictures of some flowers using different distress ink colours, different dies and different numbers of petals.  For the flowers at the top I used 4 petals.  The flowers at the bottom are fuller and for those I used 2 layers of the largest-size petals.

Using the Crealis Creative Flower No. 06 dies...

colored in aged mahogany, dusty concord, pine needles, wild honey  

A more 3-D view to show the layers...

Using the Spellbinders Rose Creations dies...

colored in victorian velvet, broken china

Using the Spellbinders Posy Patch dies...

colored in barn door, rusty hinge

Happy creating!