Hibiscus Flowers with Audrey!

  

Hi everyone, it's Audrey, back with another guest designer project for Prickley Pear Rubber Stamps. One of my favorite design techniques is creating my own handmade flowers to dress up my cards and scrapbook pages, and today I have a fun flower to share with you that I created using the lovely Hibiscus 2 Clear Stamp Set and matching Dies, and another Prickley Pear die set that might seem a bit of a surprise to you.

There are lots of beautiful pre-made floral embellishments available on the market these days, but I really enjoy making my own. Handmade flowers just add that little touch of personality and character that are completely unique to you. I love to challenge myself to come up with new designs, to think of new ways to stretch the use of my paper crafting supplies.

 

For my card today, I created a frilly, shabby chic flower using a traditional floral stamp and die set, and something totally unrelated, the Steampunk Gears die set. I think the combination is unexpected, whimsical, and just plain fun.

  

One of the great things about making your own flowers is that there is really no right or wrong way to go about it. For my flower, I began with a single hibiscus image, stamped in pink ink on white cardstock, lightly colored, and die cut using the matching Hibiscus Die. I then added lots of layers of gears, starting with the largest gear shape, and ending with the medium-sized gear, all die cut from a variety of pretty patterned papers. Topped the flower with two pink buttons, and gave it all a good scrunch to create some depth and dimension. A pair of leaves, stamped directly onto patterned paper and die cut add the finishing touch. The beautiful sentiment is from the Flourished Ovals 2 Fall Clear Stamp Set.

   

Thanks so much for stopping by! I'll be back next week with another guest designer project, but in the mean time, feel free to stop by my blog to say hello!