Less is More - recycling

The current challenge over at Less is More is to recycle something - which was the perfect opportunity to try out something new, making flowers using the plastic packaging from a set of Spellbinders dies. I just know I've seen these on blogs I follow, and haven't been able to fully track where I saw them. Also, there are tutorials on the web showing how to make the flowers, either using proper heatable acetate or packaging, I just looked at a few and then cobbled my own version together :)

 I used:

- 7" x 5" white tent style card blank

- SU 'Tempting Turquoise' card stock plus another piece of white card stock

- the flower was such fun to make! Just trimmed the edges off the Spellbinders clear plastic packaging and, using Tim Holtz's 'Tattered Florals' die, die cut four flowers. My guess is that you really do need to use one of the thick and sturdy Sizzix dies for the cutting process. Folk had used alcohol ink refills in the tutorials I'd looked at but there aren't any of those here so out came the Pro Markers. Found that by using just a couple of Pro Markers in the same colour family to colour the plastic flowers I could still get a nice mottled effect as the ink sort of 'pooled'

- next, after letting the ink dry for a short time, poked a hole in the centre of each flower ready for a brad and, using long handled tweezers and the heat gun on low just heated the flower layers one by one. The plastic softens really quickly and you can tease it to curl which way you want very easily - if it misbehaves you can just gently soften it again

- once all four layers were shaped, just assembled them with a clear glass domed brad then attached the flower to the card with hot glue

- the 'swirl' is from SU's 'Everything Eleanor' set - stamped using Memento 'Teal Zeal'

- the sentiment is from Winnie and Walter's 'The Big, the bold and the Happy' stamp set (really like how you get three huge words and lots of small ones to mix and match) - again stamped using Memento 'Teal Zeal'

And I made a spare flower at the same time:

Just love how they look like delicate glass!

And, Happy Birthday Darnell, mwah! I was one of the fortunate winners in Darnell's recent NBUS draw - as per usual I'm dithering, between online classes or more goodies.

Di
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