Flowers on a Trellis by Lis Whiting

This card is created using flowers punched and sculpted from paper. Crafting paper flowers has been made popular by Leone Em (Australia) who has been a major contributor to the craft.

The Card Base:
Fold a brown 8-1/2 x 5-1/2 piece of cardstock in half to form the base card. Layer a lighter brown [Bazzil] 4-1/4 x 5-1/4. Layer a piece of mulberry 4 x 5. (I used beige with green and brown Japanese scroll writing on it.)
Before gluing the Punchinella onto the card base, lace it with gold New Smoking Yarn [Filatura di Crotia] to resemble vines and stems. It will be onto these that we assemble the flowers. Lastly, glue on a piece of gold Punchinella 4 x 5. (See Picture)



The Tools:
To begin, one must have the right tools for the job. (See Picture 1)
 Although not all these tools are necessary, the following are essential.
* Tweezers with a fine point (to lift and place the finished flowers)
* A stylus which has a smaller and a larger metal ball (one on each end-usually used for dry embossing) that are used to form the shape of some of the flowers
* A plastic “thingie” (sorry, I don’t know the technical word for this instrument) that has a rounded end and a flat end (the flat end is used to create creases in leaves and the very large rounded end is for larger flowers and molding petals and leaves) (See Pic 1, 2nd from the left)
* A thick foam mat which is used with the instruments to mold the paper flowers (These foam sheets are sold in 8 ½ x 11 which I then cut into quarters and glue together.) (See Picture 2)
 and (See Picture 3)

* Various punches (note these punches don’t need to be flower and leaf punches. You can make a rose from pear punches.) (See Picture 4)

* Glue (I use Aleene’s Thick Designer Tacky glue. Elmer’s and other thinner glues will not work.)

Making the Flowers:
Choose coordinating and appropriate colors for the types of flowers that you are going to do. Use cardstock. (I use Bazzil because I love the linen texture which adds to the overall feel and appearance of the card.) The trellis is created by using a strip of Punchinella (commonly known as sequin waste). SkyBluePink.com has a variety of colors.

Punch the leaves using two shades of green to add to the three-dimensional aspects of the card. The leaf punches do not have to be accurate for this. It is a good idea to use two different sizes of the same type of leaf. Also punch out a few white oak leaves to add in to create variety and to break up the edge line a little. I will also be using a small fern punch.

Select the punches for your flowers. For this card I selected three (one for the outer flower, one for the middle and one for the inner part). You will note that some of the flowers are created from one punch and only the color of each layer of the flower has been changed.

After punching out your flowers and leaves, make them more realistic by molding them. Place a flower on the foam mat. Using the round end of the “thingie”, press down into the center of the flower. (See Picture 6)
 This creates a three-dimensional piece. Each of the three molded flowers are glued in layers to create a full flower. Once the glue has dried, the petals are fluffed and bent further to create a realistic flower. (See Picture 7)
 Place glue only in the center back. You don’t need much. Make the rest of your flowers. Let dry and then fluff your petals. Glue pearls for the centers of the red/pink flowers.

Putting Your Card Together:
Glue the flowers on the vine first. To glue the leaves, cut off any stems from the punched leaves. Bend your leaf by grabbing it down the middle with the tweezers and bending it (See Picture 9)
 Dip the bottom tip of each leaf into the glue and then place next to the flowers, under the petals. Again, you don’t need much glue. (See Picture 8)

I placed a few little curled ferns at the base of the vine to mimic a few grasses that had grown there.

You can vary the flower colors to suit the season or holiday.

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