Flowers for Thank You Cards

Continuing from yesterday, I have now completed the flowers to embellish my Thank You cards. I have made 2 sizes, from one Penny Duncan's Shaplies cut files:

http://cid-599a4ab7197c18bb.office.live.com/browse.aspx/.Public/PDC%20SVG%20Files/Penny%5E4s%20Shaplies

The one I used was the 5-petal Shaplie flower. I cut the large one 1 1/2 inches across, and the smaller one 1 inch. The centre of the larger one is cut from another of her Shaplies, the 7 point flower Shaplie, 3/4 inch across.

I cut some 12 x 12 inch sheets of white cardstock filled completely with these flower shapes, and I've now saved these files, created in SCAL 2 (Sure Cuts A Lot software for use with my new Cricut machine) so that I can easily cut further whole sheets of flowers in these sizes when I want. (I spent some time arranging them on the virtual mat in the software, to use the maximum amount of card, with minimal wastage.)

For my Thank You cards, I need 2 of each size, so I've decorated 30 of each. Here are some of the larger ones:

and some of the smaller ones:

To decorate them, first of all I inked the whole top surface of each with distress ink in Old Paper. So that the colour wasn't too strong, I swiped the pad onto my craft mat and spritzed it with water, and then swirled the flowers around in it. When this was dry, I used an inking pad to ink the edges and bits of the petals with Antique Linen distress ink. I then inked the edges of the petals, and added some definition, with Walnut Stain distress ink, taking care not to overdo it as this is quite a strong colour. To add the little veins to the petals, and some darkening to the centre of the flowers, I swiped the ink pad on my craft mat and spritzed it with water, and used a very fine brush to paint in the detail, treating the ink on my mat like watercolour paint on a palette.

When it was all dry, I took a piece of funky foam, and using my round-ended embossing tool, I embossed the petals from the back into the foam, and then, on the front of each flower, embossed down into the centre with the tool to complete the 3-D flower shape.

I then spritzed them with glimmer mist in a pale pink colour, which had the effect of toning down the brownish shade of the flowers. This has given them a slightly greenish hue which was unexpected, and which I rather like!

The centres of the large flowers I inked with Tattered Rose distress ink, and inked the edges with Walnut Stain distress ink. These were also spritzed with the pink glimmer mist, and glued to the centres of the flowers.

All the flowers then had centres added, using Ranger Stickles (glitter glue) in gold for the large ones, and Fruit Punch (a nice rich pink) for the smaller ones.

I have already cut some of Penny's Small Leaf Cluster cut files:

http://cid-599a4ab7197c18bb.office.live.com/browse.aspx/.Public/PDC%20SVG%20Files/Leaves

in two sizes, the larger one to go at the top left of the cards, and the smaller at the bottom left, and also the words "Thank You" in the same gold card that I made the backgrounds from yesterday (with the embossed script and gesso).

In order to assemble the cards, I need to cut some brown card to attach the script background and all the embellishments onto, and then the whole thing will be matted onto plain white card.