Indian Floral Motifs

Today I cut some floral motifs that I designed from my Indian floral border. I used some off-white cardstock that I bought at a craft show, and I have no idea what make or weight it is, but it appears to be medium weight. My sample cut worked well at Force 50 but as usual, the actual cut didn’t do so well, so next time I shall increase the force to 60. As it was, I had quite a few small pieces which needed help to get them out, and on more than one occasion, small pieces were lifted by the blade mid-cut and interfered with the cut – I paused Sheba and pulled them out. I am surprised this is still happening because I re-stickied my mat again today and the card was extremely well secured – so much so that I had to exercise caution when removing it, so that I didn’t damage my flowers. (I seem to go from one extreme to the other – very sticky, or not sticky enough – one day maybe I shall get the adhesion of my mat correct!)

However, back to my floral motifs. Each petal is taken from the design of the border, and I made two versions – one solid and one with separate petals, each having five petals. Here is a bitmap of the svg file I created (now on my Skydrive for free download – see sidebar).

As you can see, in this file there are three sizes of one design, and one of the other. Of course, you could make them any size you like, but I thought for the purposes of layering, these sizes might be good. You will notice that I have made a hole in the centre of each part. This is so you can use a brad to secure the flower pieces if you want.

Here they are immediately after cutting (and tidying up – which took a long time…) – I have coloured them with three colours of Distress Inks: Spun Sugar, Broken China and Dusty Concord, using my Inkylicious Ink Dusters, blending the colours at their junctions.

The colours I used were Spun Sugar, Broken China and Dusty Concord.

Next, I sprayed them with some of my DIY Glimmer Mist (the link to this will take you to one of my early Youtube Videos, made before I had my ARTHaven). It is made from water, with as much Distress Ink re-inker as you need to obtain the colour you require, and some Perfect Pearls in your chosen colour added, and the liquid shaken gently in a spray bottle before each use to ensure that the mica powder is suspended evenly in the liquid. You can make these in any colour combinations you like. In this case I used Spun Sugar with Perfect Pearl coloured Perfect Pearls (the silvery one).

As usual, it’s a bit difficult to see the shimmer, but they really are quite shimmery, believe me!

The next step was to paint the edges with Perfect Pearls. First I used Forever Velvet, and finished the edges with Heirloom Gold, mixing them on my non-stick craft sheet with a fine paintbrush and a little water.

I love Perfect Pearls! These mica powders are so versatile. They have a binding agent in them so if they are applied with water, they do not rub off when dry.

After this, I hand-embossed the flower pieces gently, with a large sized embossing tool, to curl up the petals somewhat.

Finally, I layered the large and small pieces with the divided petals, and decided to leave the other two pieces separate. I glued the two layers together with a spot of Scotch Extra-Sticky adhesive

The final step was to add some Stickles as embellishments. In the above photo, the Stickles are still wet. When they are dry, they will become flatter. The colours I used were Purple, Turquoise and Fruit Punch.

I think if I make up a border using these colours, I could use these flowers to make a very pretty card, or they could be used to embellish the lid of a box, with the border going around the sides.