Paper Roses with an old and still useful punch! -With Awesome Tutorial!

I was looking on you tube at a few tutorials for making paper roses, and almost all require you to cut your paper with a Cricut/Expensive machine, or even a Big Shot/Die cutter (I have one and the dies I could use), however I wanted to do a tutorial to show that even if all you have a is a punch, you can still make them and they turn out just as beautiful!

I Started with an EK success paper shaper I've had for years! The blossoms it punches out are about 2.5 inches in width, perfect for my projects. I don't want my roses too big, but any smaller might be harder to work with.

I then cut out 4, where most tutorials did three, I like my roses a little fuller and 4 gives me the right amount of layers for these roses.

The next step is to cut each one up, as you can see you get the layers that go from one to 5 petals.  Each one fits right onto the next when we get to the gluing process.

I then use a skewer (you can also use a little paint brush end or a pencil, to curl my pieces, you can see some are curled lengthwise, the other just curled under, the paper pattern gives them dimension (I used some old K and Co paper I had on hand) and I love the vintage look too.

Once this was done, I went and used the hot glue gun because it's fast and super easy, just don't burn yourself.

I did one layer at a time carefully adding just a tiny dab of glue, since it's easier to add more where needed rather than try to remove a big glob of it.

I don't worry too much about the threads of glue just yet, I generally clean up my stuff with tweezers after. Once you have layers all glued and folded and curl how you want them, you can trim the back end, and use a glue dot to adhere to your project.

I used stickles on mine, since they will go one some of my Christmas and Victorian looking ornaments.

You can see in the picture that a rose made with 3 punches doesn't look as pretty as the next one (darker one) made with 4 punches. I am gonna go punch out a few more and cut and get them ready, great to do while watching TV!

Cheers, have fun crafting!
Viviana

14 years later, and I think I still got it!

I have always loved drawing. Since I was very young, I remember sitting beside my Dad's drafting table, or at the coffee table and sketching all kinds of stuff...my mom, my feet, horses, models from magazines you name it, I drew it.  But I slowly stopped, less time, more responsibilities, and just plain laziness....after a while, I guess after college, I just hardly picked up a pencil. The last portrait I ever did was of a friends Daughter, she is now 18 and graduated highschool!
So I dove head first into this one, I took a picture of my son with my little cheap point and shoot camera and voila, I drew again.
One night,  a single HB graphite pencil and a blank canvas and, I think I still have it (98% maybe)...the touch. I guess the eye and the fingers for drawing just don't leave you. It's like riding a bicycle.....Love it!

Anyhow, Cheers all, I hope you enjoyed Thanksgiving here in Canada and Columbus Day in the U.S.

hugs,
Viviana