No Tools Lily Tutorial

You may like to refer to these entries if you haven't seen them before -
No Tools Flower and Tool Substitutes

It is important to let all colouring and gluing dry thoroughly before attempting any shaping. Wet paper will not take shaping well, and will not hold the shaping afterwards.

As usual - click on any picture for a larger view.

Here's the list of items needed to make the lily:

• Piece of white printer paper
• Moulding mat
• White pva glue
• Tweezers - not essential, but useful
• DEET tool
• Embossing ball tool
• Character shaper
• Scissors
• Coloured brush tip markers - or whatever colouring medium you prefer - paints or watercolour pencils & brush etc
  
• Flocking - see tutorial for substitutes
• Small six petaled flower punch, or snowflake - needs six points.
• Petal and leaf templates - see below
  

Cut two strips from the length of the piece of printer paper - about 3cm or just over an inch or so is fine. Fold them in half down the length, and use the templates to cut out six petals and three leaves. You can either design your own templates or use the ones I will be posting shortly. The leaves are about 5cm x 2cm at the widest point (2" x 7/8"), and the petals are about 4.75cm x 1.75cm (scant 1 3/4" x 3/4").

Please refer to the No Tools Flower instructions for exactly how to cut the petals and leaves.

Three leaves at the top, and six petals at the bottom - notice that the petals are more rounded at one end - this will be the outer tip of the petal.

Making sure that you colour at the inner, pointed end of the petal, use a light, bright green to create a triangular shape as shown. I started with the top, middle of the triangle, and brushed a line downwards with the marker to the point. Then I worked outwards on each side, each time drawing a shorter line. If you enlarge the picture you can see the staggered outline this gives. The edges of the triangle need to be like this and not straight.
Then brush in lines of yellow around the edge of the green. I used the same direction and working order as with the green, so that I finished with the yellow going slightly into the green.
Next use a pale pink marker - this time brushing from the edge of the yellow up towards the outer tip of the petal. Leave some white around the outer edges. A natural, uneven finish is what you are aiming for.
Now turn the petal over, and brush on the pink the same as on the front. I prefer not to go over the base where the green and yellow is on the other side as the pink will soak through and spoil it. The white spot will not show once the lily is mounted on a card. The pale pink needs to be fairly dry before applying the darker pink otherwise the colours will bleed.
Turn the petal back to the front and, using the fine nibbed end of a dark pink marker draw in lines as shown. Draw with a quick, flicking motion from the top of the yellow to the tip of the petal. Do one long line on each side of the centre crease, and two or three shorter ones randomly placed.
Use the brush end of the dark pink to make randomly placed spots as shown.

When making the spots, hold the marker completely upright as shown, and touch the very tip with very light pressure to the paper. If you vary the pressure slightly, you will get a variety of sizes of dots. You can use the fine nibbed end depending on your marker. I find that mine gives too tiny a size dot, and I can't vary the size of them.

Use a nice leafy green brush marker to colour the leaves. Start with a line down the centre, and then draw lines fanning out as shown. Now go back and fill in between the lines as with the left half of the right hand leaf below. Just work with single strokes always going from the base of the leaf towards the tip. Make quite quick movements with light pressure. Some areas will get covered more than once, and this gives the variation in depth of colour. If you colour too much, the paper will get too wet.

Here are the finished petals and leaves. Make sure that they are completely dry before doing any shaping on them. The leaves in this picture are still wet - the lines in the colour will become less pronounced once they are dry.

Punch out two six petaled flowers, or snowflakes. If you don't have any six armed shapes, then use a small circle as per the No Tools Flower - it will need to be nice and small so that it doesn't show too much in the finished flower.
Cut off every other petal on each flower, and colour the centres in the same green as used on the petals. No need to colour the backs.

Curve the petals as per the No Tools Flower instructions.
My apologies for the lack of focus in this picture. It also looks a little weird, as I spliced two photos together to show you how to hold the petal and tool to do the next part. (Had to do the splicing as I misplaced my third hand today!)
Hold the petal by the base, with your thumb in the curve and a finger on each side underneath to hold the curve around your thumb. This will prevent the curve flattening out whilst shaping the tip. Use the 'sharp' edge of the character tool with the rounded part facing towards the base of the petal, or the edge of your scissor blade. Sandwich the petal between the edge and your thumb just as you would if you were curling ribbon. Gently work around the tip of the petal to make it curve downwards.

The finished shaping of the petal should look something like this.

Put a small spot of pva on a scrap of paper. Touch the base tip of the petal to the glue, and then stick the petal on one of the flower arms, with the point of the petal in the centre of the flower - click for a better view.
Glue on the rest of the petals as shown.

Place a pinhead size spot of glue in the middle of one of the layers, and place the other one on top. Alternate the petals, and once you are satisfied with your arrangement, press in the centre with the ball tool to adhere firmly. The pva will give you a few moments time to adjust the positioning.

Place a leaf on the moulding mat, and using the needle end of the DEET tool, make a crease down the centre by placing the needle as flat as possible on the leaf, and drawing it with slight pressure down the length of the leaf from base to tip. Now do the same in a slight curve to one side of the centre. Repeat on the other side, and one or two times more on each side. The leaf will automatically curl up as in the bottom left picture below. Then curve the tip a little, as you did with the petal so that it looks like the picture at bottom right.

Cut a rectangle of paper approx 4 x 2.5cm long (1.5 x 1"). Cut a fringe down the length of it as shown. The width of the fringed pieces needs to be only about 1.5mm (1/16th"), and you need 7 of them. Leave about a cm (1/2") uncut at the bottom.

Now cut off the portion as shown, and colour with the light green all over the solid part, and the tips and bases of the fringed parts. Do this on both sides.

Starting at the fringed end (which is the end with my watermark over it in the picture above),roll the paper up tightly around the needle end of the DEET tool, or a quilling needle if you have one. Place a spot of glue at the end of the tab before you finish rolling to secure it.

Snip off some of the rolled end so that you have about 3mm (1/8") left. (It's easier to snip off the excess now, than to work with such a small strip when rolling.) Now hold the stamens in the centre of your flower to test their length. If they seem too long to you, snip off a little from the fringed end, until you are happy with them. Mine are a little shorter than the length of the petals.

Gently spread the stamens out, and place a small bit of glue on each of the tips. Put it on both sides as shown so that it makes a little round blob at the end. Dip the glued ends into the flocking. I have used a deep pink for six of them, and green on the one that seemed to be most in the middle. If you don't have flocking, then liquid pearls or similar works well - use that instead of the glue - this is what I have used on the fuchsia I made the other day. Looks pretty good - just not fluffy. If you don't have anything, then you can just colour both sides of the tips with a marker.

Support the stamens and leave them to dry. I have put them back on the needle of the DEET, supported by my tweezers for the photo. Putting them on the end of a cocktail stick, standing in a small jar works well - but I was too lazy to go get them!


Use your embossing ball tool to draw tiny circles with gentle pressure in the centre of the lily to make the petals pop up. How much to make them pop up depends on how full blown you want your lily to be.
Put a blob of pva the same diameter as the base of your stamens in the centre of the flower. Using tweezers to grip the stamens at their base, stand them upright in the glue. Hold for a few seconds until the glue is starting to grip.
Make sure the stamens stay upright when you let go, and prop up the lily whilst they dry completely. Once they are dry, you can make adjustments to how the stamens are positioned to suit your preference. If they are too spread apart for your liking, then gently hold each one with the tweezers at the base, and run the tweezers up towards the tip to curve them in the direction you want. If you do this before the glue is set hard, you will just pull the stamen assembly out of the flower. Not that I am speaking from experience at all!

A note from Julie :~ WOW Another fantastic tutorial from Joanne !!

You can visit Joanne's Mainly Flowers Blog HERE

Remember everyone if you create something using this tutorial leave a comment on this post so we can come and see :)

Masked Glitter Background Tutorial

Lisa from Craftstore Junkie Blog has shared this brilliant tutorial with us:-

This is a technique that I really like because it can add a unique and beautiful background to a finished card. Its relatively easy but a bit time consuming and messy - so make sure you have some time and room on your desk!

I love Glitter Ritz microfine glitter for this. These glitters are absolutely gorgeous and they come in a huge selection of colours. The woman who owns the company which creates these glitters (In the Making Enterprises) calls this technique Burnished Velvet. Any ultrafine glitter will do for this technique.

Gather your supplies. For this project you will need a card or card front to apply your glitter to, glitter (I've used three colours here: black, white and peacock blue), some double sided adhesive tape, punches or die cuts or your choice and a large powder brush.





Adhere the double sided tape to your card wherever you want your glitter background to appear. I've used a wide tape here to cover the top part of the card.






Use a tape cover from a previous project and punch out the shapes you want to use on your glittered background. It must be the cover from your adhesive tape because it can not stick to the tape permanently. Do not use paper.

Here I am using circle punches because I want to imitate bubbles in my background.


Here are the shapes I punched out with my circle punches.








Remove the adhesive cover (do not discard) and apply the shapes to the sticky tape in whatever pattern you would like. Do not touch the sticky tape with your fingers or the oils from your hands will make it not so sticky. Use tweezers or an Xacto knife to place your shapes.




This next step is very important. Take the adhesive cover you removed and place it on top of the shapes. Press down with your hands or a brayer to push the shapes into the adhesive. This is so they do not come off easily during the next steps.





Now apply your glitter. In this technique the first colour down will be your background colour. In this case it is black. The second colour will be your middle ground colour and the last colour will be your foreground. You can use as many colours as you like in this technique. Apply the glitter liberally - make sure you cover all the exposed adhesive. I do this over a sheet of scrap paper so I can pour the glitter back into the bottle afterwards. Use your makeup brush to brush off the excess glitter onto the scrap paper.

Here's what it looks like once the excess glitter has been brushed off.







Next, remove the shapes you want in your next colour. My next colour is blue but I did not remove all the shapes I wanted blue because I wanted some blue to be in the middle ground and some blue to be in the foreground.





Pour the next colour over the piece and brush off excess with the powder brush. Then repeat with your next colour and so on and so forth until you have removed all the shapes and covered the entire piece with glitter. Be sure not to touch the sticky part - use tweezers or a knife to remove the shape pieces.




Once you have applied all your colours burnish the glitter by rubbing your finger over the entire piece. Do not worry about the glitter coming off - it will stick quite well to the adhesive and burnishing the glitter makes it shine better. This is what the completed background looks like.




And here is my completed card!

Supplies: Glitter Ritz Glitter (peacock blue, black, white), Stamps (Stamping Bella, Stampin' Up!), circle punches, ribbon, My Mind's Eye mini rhinestones, black chalk, Nestabilities scallop oval, Black ink (Palette Noir), Versa Ink, white detail embossing powder, double sided adhesive tape (Sookwang)




A note from Julie :~ Thank you for a brilliant tutorial Lisa

Remember everyone If you create something using this technique please leave a comment with a link to your creation so we can come see ;)

Two Ways with Funky Pink Hearts

This Fantastic Tutorial is from Joanne from Mainly Flowers Blog

I have used my regular tools for this tutorial. For alternatives see my post on Tool Substitutes.
This flower uses a long heart shape. The punch I used is by X-cut and is called Funky Heart. Woodware do a similar one, EK success also has one called Folk Heart, and I am sure there must be others. You also need something to stick the hearts to. I have used a snowflake punched with an EK Success punch. Any small snowflake shape will do, or a six petaled flower shape. If you don't have either of those, then use a circle as per the No Tools Flower instructions.

Here are the supplies needed:

• Shaping mat
• Scrap of coloured paper
• Pva glue
• Funky Heart punch
• Snowflake punch
• Ink pad
• Embossing ball tool
• Character shaping tool
• Flat backed pearl or other embellishment for the centre

Punch out 12 hearts and two snowflakes.

Swipe the ink pad around the edges of the petals. (This looks nicer than the photo shows!)

Use the character tool (or teaspoon etc - see tool substitutes) as shown in the No Tools Flower tutorial.

The petal will curl up like this.

Glue two petals opposite each other with the tips touching in the centre of the snowflake. Like a strange little bug! Only use a tiny spot of glue on the very tip of the heart.

Continue sticking petals around the snowflake, spacing them evenly for best effect. On the second snowflake, stick the petals slightly further out as shown on the left hand layer in this photo. (Click to see closer.)

Place each layer in turn, right way up on the shaping mat. Using the character tool, draw an imaginary circle around the base of the petals, applying a little pressure as you do so. This will make the flower cup upwards.

Apply a spot of glue in the centre of the layer with the more widely spaced petals, and fix the other layer on top. Align the layers so that the petals of the top one are between those of the bottom layer.

Glue the pearl in the centre to finish.

By doing a different shaping you can get a totally different look. After punching out the shapes, do not curve them, but just stick them to the snowflake. Then turn the assembly upside down on the shaping mat and use the embossing ball tool to shape as per the Nestability Flowers.

Emboss the tips.

Emboss a line down the centre of each petal.

Turn the whole thing back over to the right side, and 'draw circles' around the base of the petals to pop them up.

Stick the two layers together, and then, with the flower on the shaping mat, press with the embossing tool in the centre to 'fluff' the petals up.

Add the pearl.


Two very different looks.

This flower was done with the second method, but using a crinkly thin tissue type paper. I used a Leone Em Stamens punch with Emerald Bazzill Bling for the centre.

A note from Julie :~ Thanks Joanne for a wonderful tutorial

If this tutorial inspires you to create some of these beautiful flowers please leave a comment here with a link to your creation :)