Theme Thursday + A Tutorial (are you getting sick of these yet?)

Yesterday, I posted a Valentine's Day hanging (that sounds weird) and a tutorial for Faux French Enamel letters. I embellished it with a flower that was made from coffee filters, and credited two of my favorite artists - Angie Hall Haviland and Penny Bennington - with inspiring me to make one. Jann commented that she enjoyed the blogs, but no one really mentioned the steps to making the flowers. I Googled it and couldn't find any process that was quite what I used, so I went ahead and did a quick tutorial. Thanks again to Angie and Penny for the inspiration!

For my flowers, I'm using store brand cone filters. No reason other than that's what kind our coffee maker takes!

Begin by cutting off the bound edges on the side and bottom. I did mine in a stack of three just because I wanted a good supply.

Open the filters and smooth flat.

Spray filter using shimmer mists or other color mists. I made my own using Cranberry Adirondack color wash, Perfect Pearls, and a few drops of Worn Lipstick reinker. After misting with color washes, mist again with water, to spread the ink and saturate the whole filter with color.

Crumple filter into small ball (you're adding wrinkles) and then smooth out.

Dry with heat gun.

When dry, cut filter into flower shapes using a die (I used Tim Holtz's Tattered Florals die) or paper punch. You could even freehand them if you'd like!

Separate your flowers and crumple them up.

Open them up and begin stacking, using a dot of Glossy Accents or other glue to hold them together. 

You can use a popsicle stick or other pointy tool to hold the center while it dries.

Here's my finished flower. I added a pearl bead and silver jewelry finding for my center. So easy! There are endless variations too. Try mixing in some flowers cut out of French (or other) text, metal or fabric - go crazy!

After stepping out the tutorial, I figured I might as well make something with my flower. I decided to have a work table clean-up and use what was lying around. The first thing I spotted was a piece of French text that was about tag-sized, so I thought I do a tag. I found a frame I'd tried to do this technique with, but hated the outcome. I held it up to the tag and it looked great (never throw anything away!). It was stamped using a stamp from the new Songbirds collection from Artistic Outpost. Love these stamps - they're so perfect for Spring. The theme for today's Theme Thursday challenge is 'Words' and since I have a few on there I'm submitting it for that challenge!

I hope you're inspired to try these...they're quite addicting (right, Angie?!) and very fun to do!