Carnation Tutorial

One of the LIMettes asked me if I could do a quick tutorial on how to make the carnations I used on my third LIM entry this week - so here it is - hope you find it useful Lorraine 

You don't need much equipment - a scallop punch, a bradawl or poky tool, a brad (any colour as you don't see it in the finished flower) and a mini mister.  I keep a spare eraser on my desk to put underneath things when I pierce holes so that's in the photo too.  Punch your scallops from PAPER not card.  Different thickness will give different effects and will need different amounts of water so play around and see what effects you can get.  For this flower I used 5 layers - in yesterdays I did 7 - again depends on the size and thickness you want - I would say 5 was a minimum though to get the effect.

Line your layers up and make a small hole in the center.

Put your brad through the hole and fix behind but leave a little slack so the papers don't pull off the front in the manipulations stages later on (you can tighten it up at the end if needs be.

Put your fingers behind the first layer and gently spritz with water.  Allow it to soak into the paper until it is pliable (the thicker the paper the more water required and the longer it takes to soak)  Take care not to over wet it though.

Scrunch the edges into the middle - the more you scrunch the more natural the finished flower - you make need to "open" and re-scrunch the middle layer to get the right effect.  Spritz the next layer as before and scrunch again.  Repeat the process until you run out of layers.

Once you get to the end you'll have a carnation "bud" (sorry for the blurry photo here).  Keep it scrunched until it begins to dry.

Open up the layers, and manipulate until you are happy with the shape.  You can stroke an inkpad over the edges carefully to get that striped edge effect that some carnations have, or add some stickles for extra sparkle..  Fix to your project with silicon glue on the open bit of the brad.

I've also seen these done with card, where the layers of card are pulled apart to reveal the fibres.  You cut the shapes, then ribble them twice, turning 90 degrees in between.  Then you wet them, then you should be able to carefully pull each layer into 2.....   Not tried it yet but I'll show you if I get chance to play with it later.  In the meantime I hope this was useful.

Happy crafting.

Craftilicious x