A fairy's treasure chest and handmade paper rose tutorial

Hello, crafty friends!  2012 is off to a good start so far. If you have visited my blog since the New Year, you already know that I am the Guest Designer for Quick Quotes for the whole month of January and I am having so much fun creating with their awesome products! They asked me to create a tutorial as one of my projects so I thought and thought about what I could do that hasn't been done recently. I decided to show you how I make my own roses out of scrapbook paper. I need to give credit to one of my blogging buddies, the very talented Dana of Dana's Inspirations, for this technique as I learned it from her and have since added my own twist to it.  After being laid off from my job of 14 years, I had to take drastic measures to reduce my household budget including what I spent on crafting supplies.  This saved me a ton of money and enables me to match my roses to whatever project I am working on. Once you get the hang of it, it's not at all difficult to do. 

The tools you'll need are the paper you want to use (I chose Quick Quotes' Julie Je T'aime 400 for my roses), a paper crimper, a large and medium 5-petal retro flower punch, Martha Stewart Rose Leaf punch (optional), 1" circle punch (optional), a medium to large ball stylus, a thick rubber mouse pad (not the newer thin kind) or a similar springy surface on which to shape the petals of your flowers, fast grab tacky glue, scissors, Judikins' Diamond Glaze or another brand of thin glue, small flat paint brush, glitter. Stickles or another brand of glitter glue can be substituted for the Diamond Glaze and glitter. I just prefer the glaze because it makes the surface of the petals slightly glossy and I can control the amount of glitter better than I can using Stickles.

The first step is to select the paper you want to use, cut it to a size that will go through the crimper and to run it through 2 or 3 times to help break down the paper fibers and make it more pliable.

Next Punch out 2 medium and 3 large 5-petal flowers for each rose you intend to make.

Now, take your ball stylus and depress it against the petals, moving from the tip to the center of the flower, forming little bowl shapes in each petal. Although you can use single-sided paper, I prefer to use double-sided because I don't like the white surface showing on my finished blossoms. When using double-sided paper, you need to decide which side of the paper will be the top and that side should be up as you are shaping your petals.

The smaller flowers are the inside part of your rose blossom and the reverse side will be the one that will be visible when you make the centers. Place a small dab of quick grab glue in the center of one small flower for each rose you are making and place a 8-10 mm pearl or similarly sized round bead on the glue. This will give shape to the closed petals and keep them from collapsing into the center. Take one petal at a time and press it upward to enclose the pearl, adding a small spot of glue on each petal where it will touch the one next to it to hold them in place.

Place a small spot of glue on the bottom of each of the centers you just created and place it on the second small flower. With scissors, snip between the petals a little bit to enable them to fold up tighter. Repeat the previous step with each rose so that you have two layers of small petals wrapped around the bead in the center. Next, place a spot of glue on the bottom of each center and attach the first layer of larger petals.  Allow to set a few minutes before you begin to shape the petals.

As before, bring the petals up toward the center one at a time only this time, curl the outer edge outward and pinch the outside edges toward one another just slightly to create the appearance of newly opened petals. Place a small dab of glue on each petal where it touches the one next to it to hold them in place.  Repeat this step with the remaining large flowers, one layer at a time. For each successive layer, stagger the petals so they aren't stacked evenly. The petals will be a little looser and more open with the bottom layer almost completely open. I just pit a small dab of blue in the middle of each of the bottom petals and press it upward against the ones above it.

The next step is optional but I like to glue a small circle to the bottom of each rose.  This gives me a base to attach the leaves and also makes the roses easier to attach to my project.  I use a 1" circle punch but you can actually use a square or other shape as long as it's much smaller than the outer circumference of your finished rose.  

 On these particular roses, the paper I used only had two of the colors I wanted to match the ones I used on the treasure chest so I used the QQ Tahiti Powderpuff chalk ink to add some turquoise.  Now my roses are ready to glitter.  I places a couple of large drops of the Diamond Glaze on a plastic lid and thinned it down with a droplet of water so I could brush it onto my petals with a flat paint brush.  Then I sprinkled the iridescent glitter over the entire blossom and tapped it with my fingertip to knock off the excess glitter.  I did the same thing with the leaves before I attached them to the circular bases.

Voila! This is how the finished roses look. Now they are ready to add to your project. I try to make each one unique the way roses are in nature. I think this adds more interest to my finished project. You can make rose buds the same way by using the large flowers and following the first 4 steps. You'll need to use a larger bead as the center and depending on how big you want it, you can also use 3 layers of petals instead of 2. Curl 1 or 2 petals over on one side to make it look like it's starting to open. You can use a star flower punch to make the green part that covers the outside of the bud and curls downward toward the stem when it starts to blossom.

And here's how the roses look on my papier mache treasure chest that I covered with the Julie Je T'aime 300 paper. They coordinate perfectly, don't they? And look at those adorable little QQ Glitter Diecut dragonflies! For some reason, I always associate dragonflies with fairies! LOL ard 

View of the top. The purple and gold in the roses is much more vibrant in person. I adhered the hot set crystals one at a time using my Imaginisce iRock. It's one of my favorite tools.  

Other than the roses I made, the flowers I used are by Petaloo. I was fortunate to win one of their prize packs of flowers during the blog hop they did with none other than our own Quick Quotes a little over a month ago.  The little metallic braided trim and turquoise organza ribbon are from my stash.

I couldn't help myself... I had to use this cute QQ chipboard piece on one end of my little treasure chest.  I thought it was the perfect finishing touch. I really like how this turned out.

So there you have it! I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial and that you'll try making your own scrapbook paper roses. I purchase very few flowers these days and making my own has not only saved me a lot of money, I don't have to run to the scrapbooking store every time I need flowers to match one of my projects. Thanks for visiting today. And don't forget you have the entire month to create your entries for the Quick Quotes challenge! Until next time...

Happy crafting!

Anniebee