Metal Flowers for my Valentine

This is one of those projects that has evolved …. it has turned out nothing like I thought it would, but I must say I am quite pleased with the result.

The inspiration for my starting point was a combination of the gorgeous Scattered Leaves Background die from Sue Wilson’s latest die release and the beautiful pictures on the SET Craft Facebook page from the Gilded Flowers workshop they held at the end of January 2016.

The largest of the three dies in the Scattered Leaves Background die set was cut into a sheet of black Creative Expressions (CE) Foundations card.

CE Metallic Gilding Wax in Enchanted Gold was used to enhance the gorgeous leaf pattern of this die and a pearlised paper in a soft gold colour, very close to the Enchanted Gold wax, was set behind the frame created by the background die.

Now the flowers – these were cut from the same black Foundations card and soft gold pearlised paper to ensure coordination, using the two Finishing Touches die sets Perfect Peony Complete Petals and Delicate Daisies Complete Petals from previous Sue Wilson die releases.

Some were left with the die’s embossing, and others were embossed with a dot and a zig-zag and dot design using embossing folders in my stash for different textures. Again the Enchanted Gold gilding wax was used on the black card to make this embossed texture ‘pop’.

The foliage behind the flowers is provided by Beaded Swirl Flourishes, again from Sue’s latest die release, also cut in the soft gold and black – with the gilding wax pulling out the die-embossed detail on the card.

The flowers were ‘built’ by pinching and shaping each separate flower die-cut, then layering them to (hopefully) give attractive individual blooms. The layers were glued together, then shaped further with a ball-tool pushed into their centre on a foam mat.

Cosmic Shimmer PVA in Pearlescent Golden Pearl and Glossy Cosmic Black were used for the centres.

Originally the plan was to arrange the flowers and foliage within the Scattered Leaves frame – however, I decided that too much of the frame became obscured by the flower spray, so opted to put these adjacent to the frame.

It is amazing how long it takes to get a ‘natural’-looking arrangement of 5 flowers and 3 sprigs of foliage – this was ‘by far’ the slowest piece of the project; hopefully you will feel I have achieved that.

A Visible Image stamp provides the lovely (and appropriate for today) saying within the Scattered Leaves frame – this was stamped in a gold die-based inkpad I have in my stash and then brushed with Cosmic Shimmer Iridescent Mica Pigment in Gold Sparkle.

The work is housed in a box frame I bought some years ago when I had plans to produce a piece of embroidery – this keeps the dust off the flowers; the ‘box’ part of the frame was raw wood, so to complete the colour coordination Pinflair Buff-it in Antique Silver (which is like a golden, tarnished silver) was used.

Apologies for the reflections on the glass of the frame.

Items used:

Craft Dies by Sue Wilson:

Background Dies – Scattered Leaves (CED7103)

Finishing Touches – Beaded Swirl Florish (CED1457)

Finishing Touches – Perfect Peony Complete Petal (CED1432)

Finishing Touches – Delicate Daisies Complete Petal (CED1417)

Cosmic Shimmer – Iridescent Mica Pigment Gold Sparkle

Cosmic Shimmer Glossy Black PVA

Cosmic Shimmer Pearlescent PVA – Golden Pearl

Creative Expressions Metallic Gilding Wax – Enchanted Gold

Pinflair Buff-it – Antique Silver

Foundations card – black

Visible Image stamp – Love You Longer