PAPER FLOWERS

I know you are going to feel truly sorry for me when I tell you this. I can't have fresh flowers in my house. Why? Because my darling 14-year-old cat, Fred, eats them. Then throws up all over the house. But never on hard floor. Always on carpeting. 

If someone does give me flowers for an occasion, they have to sit on the mantel where it's fairly dusky -- not light at all -- and where I rarely see them. Now, during the summer, it's nice because I can just set them on the table on the deck. I can see them nicely from the kitchen. And, when the weather is nice, I spend lots and lots of time sitting out on the deck. So that's perfect.

Anyway, no flowers in the house -- except on the mantel. Boo.

So, I thought I'd make myself a little permanent bouquet of flowers that he will leave alone. At least, I THINK he will. He hasn't spotted these yet.

The other day I was in my Creation Station all set to get started on a brainstorm idea I'd had. When I had finished the brainstorm part of the creation, it stunk. It ended up in my wastebasket. Which rarely happens. But it was that bad.

Wandering around aimlessly and disappointed in myself, my eyes fell upon a package of little white clothlike paper flower bunches that I'd purchased on Clearance and had yet to do anything with. I had an aha moment, and this one worked out nicely. 

My result is the following:

I wasn't at all sure this brainstorm would even work, but I went ahead with a little bunch of five flowers I'd plucked free from the others. Grabbing five of my Stampin' Blends, I carefully colored each of the flowers. It worked perfectly!

The colors of Stampin' Blends I used were Light Granny Apple Green, Dark Pool Party, Light Melon Mambo, Dark Mango Melody, Light Seaside Spray and Dark Purple Posy. Didn't they turn out adorable?

My little bouquet needed some greenery, so I grabbed the teeny leaflet dies from the Forever Flourishing Dies (page 175 in the Annual Catalog), and cut out four of them. The die set comes with FOUR of these little dies, two facing each way, so you can run them through the die cut machine just once and get four of them. They were cut from Granny Apple Green cardstock.

My next question was, "what shall I put my little bouquet in?" Remember a few weeks ago when I had stamped and fussy cut a whole slew of vases from the Basket of Blooms set (page 48, Annual Catalog)? I dumped out that supply of assorted vases and tried my bouquet in several that I thought would work well. This is the one I decided was THE ONE. 

I adjusted my bouquet behind the vase itself, taping it in place, then added three of the four leaflets I'd cut.

A close-up of my permanent Fred-proof bouquet:

All well and good. I had my bouquet in a vase. Now what?

I dug out the Stitched So Sweetly die set, found on page 179 of the Annual Catalog. This set is actually a terrific value in that you get six nested rectangle dies with stitched scalloped edges, as well as four assorted shaped dies, all for only $32.00. This set of dies is one I am constantly grabbing. It is so easy to find a die that is suitable for your project. You can even layer the different styles of dies as I did in my card.

I must confess that I tried several combinations of colors until I came up with the two whites together. To make the smaller piece a little different from the flat white base, I ran it through the Subtle 3D embossing folder (page 185 in the Annual Catalog). I then popped it up with Dimensionals to make it a bit more prominent.

Because all the stems from my bouquet were towards the top of my vase and made that area quite bulky, I added a couple Dimensionals to the bottom of the vase to balance it out and mounted the completed vase to the textured piece.

I wanted to use one of the sheets from the darling Flowers for Every Season 6X6 Designer Series Paper (page 148). The patterns on several of the sheets were much much too important and distracting on which to add my cute little innocent bouquet. But I did find one side that was perfection personified, as you can see below. I have the card sitting atop a swatch of the flip side of the DSP I used. Beautiful, but not suitable for this card.

Because my little leaflets were cut from Granny Apple Green cardstock, I added a sliver sized mat of the same color before I used Dimensionals to mount it to my Whisper White card base.

Since the little uncolored stamens in the flower bouquet reminded me somewhat of pearls, I added a few Basic Pearls to finish it all off.

This simple little bouquet is going to sit right alongside my computer so I can enjoy it forever. Stay away, Fred!

Paper

Smiles.