Lilac Tissue Flower

Sorry it has been a while since I have blogged. I have been busy making all sorts of flowers, but I am running out of room for storing the explosion boxes in my caravan.

When out for dinner one night we were given this lovely purple serviette to cleanse our hands and face... instead I hoarded mine and went back to the van and made it into two 3d tissue flowers. I folded the serviette into 4 and then hand cut the wiggly circle shapes. I separated them into individual layers and then reattached them into two piles with a brad in the centre  of each flower through all layers. To make the flowers I then proceeded to scrunch all the layers separately and then partly open them to create the dimension and interesting petal shapes. I think it kind of looks like an old fashioned rose.

To make the box I used my cuttlebug to emboss 4 top card layers through the textile folder and then edged the card with a sponge and colour swiped off an inkpad.
The little flowers were made with a retro punch and a snowflake punch as stamens and touched in various colour inkpads.  For a change some of the flowers are also up on the acetate strips. I like this look. I may do more like this in future at times.

The small leaves are birch leaf punch from Carl and the swirl is a punch again from Carl. The larger leaves are hand cut following the basic shape of the birch leaf punch but using my deckle edged scissors. My butterflies are hand cut and glittered from a long forgotten museum website.

Here is a close up. Feel free to ask any questions.

More Early Explosion Boxes

My husband and I were to take our caravan, affectionately called the Robbiebago after my husband,

Robert, who designed and built the van, on a major road trip up the centre of Australia

and down the coast of Western Australia as we joined the great Grey Nomad exodus.

A more formal white on white with a touch of gold. This one holds a gift card in the centre.

Another formal white on white with a touch of pink. This too holds a gift card in the centre.

As I can't travel without some crafts, I quickly decided to concentrate on making explosion boxes

and the flowers to decorate them with. 

I can't stick with just one design either. I love to experiment and that will continue as I go.

Blessings is the saying here. Purple roses adorn a rainbow brayered background.

The white layers (and on the white ones above) are embossed with a cuttlebug folder to give textural interest.

I have all my flower punches  with me - which is only about 5 at this stage -  

but mostly I end up hand cutting the flowers as my punches were not large enough for me.

Open style Floribunda roses quickly become an early favourite.

Early efforts at Explosions Boxes

Here are a few of my earliest efforts at making Explosion Boxes.

My very first one - made for my best friend. Made with commercial silk flowers & rub ons

My first attempt at making my own flowers (from Fred she said blog).

A photo box made with silk flowers

My first stamped box together with my first 3D paper flowers

  I think the silk flowers are nice but I wanted to have a go at making my own flowers.

I wanted a more creative input. It quickly became obvious that butterflies were going to be part of my 'signature' on most of my boxes. I love butterflies. One day I might even try making some.

These butterflies are printed from the internet already coloured. I cut 2 and glue them back to back.