Ideas for Scrapbookers: Friday Featured Artist: Acetate Flowers by Jennifer D.

Starting today, I am going do one post with the featured artist's intro and actual post. It will make it much easier when referencing who wrote each post :)
Sooo I am totally excited to announce our fabulous featured artist for this week! It is Jennifer D. and I think you will absolutely love her idea today plus get so much inspiration from her blog. I browsed it for a while and found so many COOL projects like beautiful home decor and a homemade tree (plus fabulous layouts)! You just have to check out her blog! I am totally honored to have her featured here today.. let's get to know Jennifer and I will be posting her idea right below that!!

Hello Fellow Scrapbookers and Paper Crafters! My Name is Jennifer and I love Scrapbooking! I live in Calgary Alberta Canada with my wonderful and supportive husband of 10 years and my precious fur-baby named Angus. By day I am a Software Developer and Project Manager but by night I am the Chief Memory Officer for my family!

This hobby is a great way for me to express my creativity every day whether it is for a couple of stolen minutes at the end of the day or a couple of hours at a crop. I have been a scrapbooker for as long as I can remember. In High School, I used to buy composition books and using Aylmer’s glue, I would paste pictures of all my friends and family and then doodle and write around them. I walked into my first scrapbook store about 9 years ago with a girlfriend of mine and I have been a faithful customer ever since! Things you will always find in my shopping bag are patterned paper, adhesive and some thing by Tim Holtz. I primarily do one and two page layout in the 12x12 format and in the last couple of years, I have started making my own cards. I often get asked what my scrapbooking style is and to be honest, I don’t know. My style seems to be constantly changing and evolving as I am always on the hunt for new inspiration! I love every aspect of scrapbooking from picking photos and supplies to sliding the finished layout into an album, although I will admit that journaling is always something I procrastinate on and you will normally find a stack of layouts on the corner of my desk waiting for me to take the time and do the journaling.

Thank you for this opportunity to share my passion for this wonderful hobby with you today! I can honestly say that I have friends from all over the world just because of sharing my creativity and passion with people like you! I'd love for you stop by my blog, The Scrap Drawer (http://scrapdrawer.blogspot.com), you never know, maybe I can inspire you!

Acetate Flowers by Jennifer D.

I have to admit, I have a bit of a soft spot for flowers, ok maybe it would be better explained as an obsession. I am always looking for new and innovative ways to use my existing supplies to make beautiful flowers for my layouts. In this tutorial, I will teach you how to make acetate flowers.

First you will need to gather all of the supplies needed:

1 Sheet of Acetate, Flower Dies in 3 Different Sizes, Glossy Accents, Alcohol Inks in 2 Colours, Alcohol Blending Solution, Glossy Accents, Some Bling and Leaves, Tweezers, Paper Piercer and a Heat Gun

Next you will need to cut the three different sized flowers out of the acetate. For this I used my Cuttlebug and Nestabilities Die set. If you do not have a Cuttlebug that is ok, you can hand cut out them out.

Apply several drops of each colour of alcohol ink to a felt pad and an applicator.

Make sure to place a scrap several pieces of paper down first and then lay each of your acetate flowers on top of it. Now simply blot in an up and down motion all over the each acetate flower until each on is completely covered. If you wish to have more vibrant colours wait for it to dry and repeat again.

Now I wanted to tone down some areas of the flowers so I put a couple of drops of alcohol blending solution on the same felt pad I used for the alcohol inks and did a couple of quick blots to each flower. You do not have to do this step if you do not want to.

Next, I needed my petals to be a little more separated in order for them to curl properly so using my scissors, I cut a small slit towards the center and stopped about a half inch from the center. Be careful not to cut too far down or the flower might become too flimsy.

Using a pair of tweezers, I hold the flower in front of my heat gun. There is no definitive amount of time here. It’s until you get the right amount of curl. The longer you heat it the more shrinking and curling you will get. If you are quick enough you can use your fingers to curl it while the acetate is still hot but once it cools it becomes very brittle so please be careful. I repeat this for each petal on each flower until I am done. I recommend the very first time you use a piece of scrap acetate in order for you to get a feel for how it will shrink and curl.

Now comes the fun part – assembling your flower. Using a paper piercer, poke a hole in the center of each flower. For leaves, I had these really pretty beaded leaves on craft wire that I wanted to use, so starting with the bottom flower I poked the craft wire through the back of the bottom flower so that the beaded leaves were behind the bottom of the flower. If you do not have something like these beaded leaves you can use craft wire you buy at the craft store and wrap one end around some fabric/paper leaves you have.

I added the other two flowers on top of the bottom flower.

And then bent the craft wire so that the flower would lay flat and the wires were sticking straight up. I also played around with the curve of the beaded leaves till I got the look I liked.

To secure the entire flower, I put a small dab of Glossy Accents between each of the flower layers as well as around the wire on the top layer.

While the Glossy Accents was still wet I added a couple of pearl bling beads. And now the hard part came, waiting for it to dry!

Once the Glossy Accents was dry I sniped the craft wire down to about a ¼ to ½ inch above the pearl bling beads. I curled each piece of craft wire by bending it around the end of my tweezers.

And there you have it, an acetate flower. You can now go and add this to any card, layout or altered project. I hope you give these beauties a try because I am sure you will love them as much as I do!