Altered book, phase 1.

I want to qualify as a Floral Punchcraft teacher, but my qualification project needs to be sent to Australia.  I think a hollowed-out book would be a great presentation and packing medium.  That's what I intend to do with this altered book.

For now, I will make this book into a beautiful frame to house my work.

The work itself is still in progress.  I am perfecting my techniques all the time.  Or trying to, anyway.

FPC Friday - Tuberose

Ooh, pretty. I love it. It's simple, it's sophisticated, and it's a repetitive make which means that once through and you've learned it! Eight full-size blossoms and two buds, done. I love the Tuberose!

It does have little stamens inside each flower. here's a close-up:

FPC Friday: Dahlia and flourishes

The flower featured on this card is the dahlia from book 2, made in a darker red than the example on the cover.

This flower was bigger than I thought it would be, but it is so lovely. Instead of leaves, I put it with some green flourishes, which sadly get a little lost on the black and white background I made earlier. I'm pleased with it and may try making it again in different colours. It's quite a rich-looking one and has already gone to a good home. It was eventually made into a thank-you card for my neighbour and her other-half for taking my little girl to the hospital one night when she bumped her head. I'm sure she's put it in a safe place. :)

Teardrop Flowers and Golden Glow

This week's card is made with something old and something new. The purple flower is the Teardrop Flower from book 9. It has frilled petals, and used a technique that was new to me. The large yellow flowers are Golden Glow from Book 2. There are a couple of flowers from Book 1 in there too- can you spot them?

Geraldton Wax and some fillers

sometimes when I spend a long time on a spray of flowers, I wait ages to put it on a card. I thought it best not to keep doing that, or I'd have badly damaged flowers waiting to go onto cards. Here's the Geraldton Wax spray, with two different filler flowers to fill in any gaps, mounted onto a Diane's Daughters background with some borders cut with wafer-thin dies.

The Geraldton Wax was a fun flower to make. It brought back some quilling skills and there was a lot of colouring involved. I need to get that right, I'm still not terribly used to doing colouring of flowers. We live and learn!

Spring is Here

If I had this one to do over, I'd probably have matted the flowers onto some off-white card before mounting them on this card. They are looking a bit lost!

I apologise for being a bit lax on the Floral Punch Craft front of late. My usual Tuesday-night punchcraft sessions have been taken up by other things these past few weeks and I haven't had time to make anything, let alone photograph or blog! I did a few though, and they will be upcoming.

The Spring Is Here arrangement is available in Floral Punch Craft II by Leone Em. I bought my copy at Cardinal Colours in the UK. Tools and punches are also available from there.

FPC Friday - Missing!

I have some flowers done, as it happens... but I'm quite busy preparing for other things at the moment and I haven't got round to making these into a card and photographing it.

Instead, this FPC (Floral Punch Craft) Friday, I am going to ask:

Has anyone tried Floral Punch Craft as a result of reading my blog? Is there anyone out there reading that enjoys Floral Punch Craft and comes to see what I've done, that hasn't spoken up before?

Do let me know. Also, if you are familiar with Floral Punch Craft, please feel free to issue me a challenge or ask a question. I'm no expert, but perhaps I may be able to help anyway. You never know, right?

I will endeavour to have my Teardrop Flowers ready for posting next week.

Sorry about that!!!

FPC Friday - Waratah

This flower is called the Waratah, and it's from book 9. This one took me quite a while to do and I need to make this again quite soon because I made some key mistakes that i need to teach myself how to fix!

Understandably, the centre took the longest to make. It's a lot of fun though. In the book, the instructions are on one page, to be continued toward the back of the book. In one sitting, I did the first page of instructions and then later in the week I did the second page. Once the centre is done, the rest of it flies by! The leaves on this one have been glossed with Glossy Accents, but I think this gloss may be too thick for doing leaves. I have a clear paper varnish that I will try to use next time. That should add the shine without losing the detail of the veining on the leaves.

The card blank is from an old QVC kit. I'm glad I'm finally finding a use for them!

FPC Friday - Simple Blossoms

These were lovely to make, and I learned a new character-shaping technique. these are called Simple Blossoms and they are made with a little bone-shaped punch and the mini sun. The leaves are supposed to be made with the Ashley punch but since I don't have it, I cut a "flower" punch into its six segments several times, and attached them onto tiny stems and voila, my leaves. I gave them character as well so they are more lively. I will definitely be making these again.

But don't I always say that?

FPC Friday - Two from book Six

I've taken photos of this bouquet from two angles because they both show off different aspects of the flower. Bear with me....

The pink flowers in this bouquet are called Geraldton Wax and are from Book Six of Floral Punch Craft by Leone Em. The smaller white clusters are from the same book and they are called Minute flowers, I assume because they are quite quick to make.

The small yellow fill-ins are from the Floral Punch Craft DVD, which is like an introductory class. If you would like to learn the skills required to make the flowers in the books, this is a great way to go about it because the DVD is like a mini class taught by Leone herself. In the DVD, she shows you how to make these little fill-in flowers and also another flower. It's well worth the price! In the UK, you can get your copy at Cardinal Colours while they last. They also have all the tools you need in your Floral Punch Craft kit, so if you buy the lot you can sit by the TV or your computer and make the flowers right along with Leone!

Just to help you out, here's a list of what you will need:

Floral Punch Craft DVD

Small Balloon Punch

Small Flower Punch (like a circle with six scallops)

Medium Hand Punch (yes, the shape is a hand.)

Corner Flower Punch (it punches five tiny flower shapes out of the corner of the paper)

Character Shaper

Shape Mate

Double-Ended-Etching-Tool (DEET)

Angled Tweezers

Reverse (closed) tweezers - the kind you squeeze to open

pointed-end fine scissors (decoupage scissors)

Moulding Mat

PVA glue

Finger shield

These items are very inexpensive, so don't be put off by the length of the list. Jill at Cardinal Colours has kindly bundled the moulding mat and tools together for you, so all you need outside of that is the glue, punches and DVD. The paper used is ordinary copy paper. Almost everyone has it lying around the house, just grab some and get started! After you punch the shapes, you can colour them using whatever method you wish. As long as the paper is dry when you start shaping it, you'll be fine.

If you try Floral Punch Craft as a result of reading this blog, please leave me a commeent. I would love to know I've helped someone to find this very rewarding craft.

And as always, stay tuned for another FPC Friday!

A Trio of Horses

Finished!!!

When I made my challenge card blogged the day before yesterday, I had also stamped and coloured (differently) two other horses. Today, I finished them up. Luckily, I had a nice stack of free papers from magazines with which to cover my card blanks. I used some spare cardstock that wasn't matched up with any patterned paper for the scalloped mats, cut on the Craft Robo. The white ovals were cut on the Robo too, to ensure they matched up nicely with the scalloped ovals. I was considering using my cutting system to make the plain ovals but it's not wise to use two cutting devices for ovals as ovals can have many different ratios of vertical/horizontal diameter. When that goes wrong, it's blindingly obvious.

Half of my box of spare Floral Punch Craft flowers went on this project. I'm glad because I can now make more!! :)

FPC Friday - Gerbera Card

This card took a looonnng time to make but it was worth it in the end. I really love it and I will be making it again! This one has already been sent to a friend for her birthday. It got there quite late, but I only see her once a month and I just wasn't organised enough to get a card to her before the day.

I made one alteration to the card that isn't pictured: I punched a border down the right-hand side on the front, and put a white insert into it. It added a little contrast down the side.

Scrapology Card Challenge for April!

For those of you who don't know, Scrapology is now doing card challenges too. I thought, "Why not?" The requirement is to use a charm.

My butterfly charm came from some earrings from Primark. I have been putting off dismantling them but I finally took one butterfly off and used it.

Also appearing, the Carousel horse I got at Ally Pally!

The flowers are... wait for it... yeah, Floral Punch Craft. These are from book 2, flower number 11, called "Spring is here." But it's done in autumn colours.

I'm pleased with this card, so I have prepared two more horses in different colour schemes. I just need to cut another two scalloped ovals and find some nice background paper for the cards that tone with the other horses, which might be a bit of a task in itself!

FPC Friday - Flowering Cherry Plum

It's that time of the week again, and here's your Friday Flower Fix!

This is the Flowering Cherry Plum. The cherry blossoms are in the process of falling off the trees as I write this, and until I made these flowers I wasn't aware of just how many cherry trees we have around here. They really are lovely.

They're not on a card yet. I keep picking twigs off of cherry trees to use but then I lose them. If I can make my twigs stay put, these will end up on a card, finally!!! perhaps with a lovely oriental theme.

FPC Friday - Lovely to Look at...

...easy to make. That's what the flower is called in Book 2 of Floral Punch Craft by Leone Em.

And here it is:

This one was quick to make. I think I did the whole thing in about an hour. The thing that took up most of the time was tinting the green paper to look a bit more Olive. I don't yet have a good selection of greens, so I must tint the paper with chalks to make it a bit more interesting.

Here's a heads-up: I may start jumping around a bit, not systematically go through the books in order. I have every Floral Punch Craft book except book 8. There are nine including the DVD, and I've been flipping through them. I'm quite excited to make some flowers that are in the later books, especially since the teachers on the forum are also working on the latest and greatest stuff. I want to join in with them. You'll have to forgive me if I break form. :)

FPC Friday - Crimson Delight

I'm motoring through Book 2 and loving every minute! This is flower 12, called Crimson Delight. I love this one. Lots of layers, a bit of inking, and a great colour combo. I don't know what I'm using the card for yet, so I'm leaving the sentiment blank.

FPC Friday - I Quit!!!!!!

Just kidding!!! April Fools! I would never!

Here's flower 13, "Eye Catcher" from Book 2. This one was fun to make. I needed to paint the petals first, but they dried quickly so I didn't have to stop to wait for them to dry. I had 24 pieces to paint, so by the time I was done with them, the first few were dry and ready to work with.

FPC Friday - Fuchsia

If you know my mother-in-law, don't tell her you've seen this. It's her birthday card... or maybe her Mother's Day card. I'm not entirely sure yet. I'd like to get it out of my house before any harm comes to it, if I'm honest...

This is Flower 17 from Book 2. I matted the flowers on a circle punched round the edge with a Fiskars Circle Border punch. I haven't used that in a while, so chalk up another piece of under-used craft supplies brought back into regular use!

FPC Friday - Santa's Sack Flowers

Remember the Water Lilies? The petals were cut from a punch that started out as a Santa Claus carrying a sack of toys. These toy sacks were cut out as well and laid aside, because nothing is wasted that way. I took them and made Flower 10 from Book 2.

FPC Friday - A Spray for Carnations

These flowers are meant to be arranged with some larger flowers. I haven't quite got the Carnation mastered yet, but look out for it. I will probably be including some of these along with it.