TENseconds Studio: Flowers By Vickie Doswell

Vickie Doswell has outdone herself for today design team challenge. It's all about Flowers

I have been having a lot of fun making flowers and I received a lot of comments about a flower I made to put on a canvas. I LOVE VerDay Paint and Patina and have used it in making flowers from card stock, metal, and on canvas.

The first thing you want to decide is what kind of flower, what color of metal you want it to be or look like and what dies or punches you will use to cut it out with. This could turn into a rather lengthy post so I am going to try and condense it breaking it down into metal or cardstock.

Use any type of die cut machine and texture plates. I used a Sizzix dies called Flower Layers, Daisies and a Sizzix die called Tattered Flowers. I used copper and brass sheets and the Flower Layers die to cut this first flower out.

I also used a flower punch from Stampin Up! to cut out a couple smaller flowers using copper but the brass metal sheet was too thick for the punch but worked fine with the dies. The metal flowers can be embossed after cutting with either the molds from TSS or embossing folders. I found embossing them gave the VerDay Patina something to hold on to get a better oxidization.

After approximately 24 hours you can take a sanding block and sand the pieces lightly to make the metal shine above the patina. Take the flower pieces and stack them together and secure them with a brad and start forming the petals. The metal that has been embossed has to be manipulated by hand curving and turning it to make the petals. If you didn't emboss you can use the metal working tools from TSS to turn the petals.

To make the paper VerDay flowers I painted the bronze and copper paint on white and brown cardstock drying it well before cutting it as I did the metals.

The cardstock will curl as it dries but it is just paper and you can flatten it out easily.

Next cut the flower pieces using the dies or punches.

Place pieces on the foam from the Mat Set and using the TSS metal working ball of the ball and cup tool gently use circular motion on the back side of the flower to make the petals curl. Depending on how much curl you want depends on the size of the ball.

Here I just used the erasing tool to curl the center to make a cup to fit the pieces together. I then lightly sprayed the flower parts with VerDay in a fine mister to start the oxidization process. There is a VerDay Patina Sprayer available from TSS but it has a coarser spray and the flowers need a lighter touch.

The next step is to put the pieces together to form the flowers and I hit them with another mist of VerDay and let them sit a day to oxidize. Attach in the same manner as the metal flowers.