Creating Beautiful Dimensional Flowers

Hello crafty friends! It’s Lisa Tilson here with you today on the Spellbinders blog. I’m excited to be here to show you how to create dimensional flowers. I am using one of the beautiful floral die sets from the Summer Solstice Garden Collection by Susan Tierney-Cockburn. This collection features five sets of flower dies, a 3D embossing folder, and a sentiment press plate, which has lots of garden-themed quotes to enjoy.

This is the card I am creating for you today. I will be walking you through all the different stages of pulling it together. I am using the lovely Cosmos Etched Dies and the Summer Solstice Garden Sentiments BetterPress Plate and Die Set. Cosmos are one of my favourite flowers for our garden – we grow them every year and we will be planting ours out soon. My card is based on the Cosmos Sonata Mix colours!

I am mostly going to be die cutting today, but I do throw in a little bit of foiling too. I use the standard Platinum 6 sandwich for all of my die cutting. From bottom to top, your plates should be as follows:

• Platform Base (A)
• Platform Top (B)
• Cutting Plate (C)
• Cutting Plate (C)

I will be showing you the process of making one of the flowers. You will just need to repeat the steps for the other two.

Tip: I tend to work in stages. For instance, I will do each step for each flower before moving on, rather than making one flower and then making the next flower. This definitely speeds up the process.

1. Start off by doing all of your die cutting using the Cosmos Etched Dies. There are six dies in this set, and as is customary with Susan’s dies, if you need to cut a die more than once, there will be a number on it which will tell you how many times you need to cut it.
2. I have pre-cut most of my die cuts but I have taped the remaining two flower dies onto a piece of Wild Berry Cardstock using Best Ever Craft Tape. I run this piece through my Platinum 6 to complete the die-cutting part of the card.

ColorWheel cardstock used: Wild Berry, Tutu, Classic White, Rainforest, Peridot, Beeswax, and Saffron.

Tip: I always tape my dies to my cardstock – this is a personal preference. I tape them so that there is no chance of them shifting as they go through my die-cutting machine. You can re-use your Best Ever Craft Tape multiple times before it falls apart!

3. The next step is to mould your flower petals. This is what will give you all of that beautiful dimension!
4. I am just bringing the sides of each petal up towards each other, pressing my thumb down into the centre of the petal at the same time. It takes a bit of practice to get the shape you like. Complete this for all of your petals.

Tip: If you wanted to, you could go one step further after this and then mould the edges of the petals back the other way so they have a more rounded look.

5. I have placed my moulded flower onto the back of a mouse mat. Take a stylus/ball tool and press it down into the flower centre. Then using circular motions, move the tool around, and you will see the petals start to rise.

6. Put a little Bearly Art Glue into the centre of the largest of your two sets of petals and then adhere the smaller petals on top.

7. Now take one of the Beeswax flower centres. You will have die-cut two of these for each flower. Using 4” Detail Scissors, cut each of the little stamens into two.

Tip: you need a steady hand for this! I found using tweezers to hold the flower centre easier than using my hands. The stamens don’t need to be evenly cut and if you cut the odd one off by mistake, don’t worry, you won’t notice it in the final flower.

8. Put some wet adhesive into the flower centre and pop the second flower centre on top. You can play around with them later and fluff them up a bit if you find you are squishing them a little as you glue them together.

9. Adhere the flower centres into the centre of your moulded flower.

10. Put some more glue into the middle of the centre and then using an embellishment wand, add the tiny little “seeds”. My “seeds” have been cut from Saffron ColorWheel Cardstock.

11. Repeat all of these steps for your other two flowers, and you have completed the main elements of the card!

12. Next, take a panel of Classic White ColorWheel Cardstock (mine is 5” x 7”) and place the largest die from Perfect Touch Rectangles and Tag Etched Dies down on top.
13. Tape it in place using Best Ever Craft Tape.

Tip: try to place your tape outside of your die. This way, you won’t get any sticky residue on your die-cut panel.

14. Heat up your Glimmer Hot Foil System.
15. Whilst you are waiting for it to heat up, take the Summer Solstice Garden Sentiments BetterPress Plate and Die Set and prepare it for foiling. I am foiling onto Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80lb cardstock. This usually works really well for me, but you may need to experiment with your cardstock.
16. Take a panel of white card (mine is approx. 5” x 6.5”) and lay some Satin Champagne Glimmer Hot Foil down on top.
17. Place your sentiment plate on top, face down. Hold it in place using yellow tape.
18. When you see the Platform Ready light turn green, your machine is ready for foiling.
19. Pop your foiling sandwich down on top, making sure the plate is touching the hot surface.
20. Add your two shims on top and press the timer button. It will start to blink.

21. When the green timer light stops blinking, you can remove the platform from the base and run it through your die-cutting machine.
22. Next, carefully remove the plate using the tool provided, and then pick up your foiled panel.

23. You can now pull the foil back and see your beautiful sentiments. The magic of foiling never ever disappoints!

24. Take the Summer Solstice Garden Sentiments BetterPress Plate and Die Set, coordinating die, and tape it down over your sentiments. You will see that I have added my tape onto the edges of the die so that I do not risk spoiling the foiled sentiment when I remove it.

25. Start to assemble your card. I am adding each of my flowers onto my die-cut panel using some foam tape along with some wet adhesive.

Tip: adding wet adhesive onto the foam tape prevents it from sticking straight away and allows you time to manoeuvre your flower into the right place.

26. Next, adhere your greenery behind the flowers using glue.

Tip: Using only a small amount of foam tape on the back of the flowers allows more room for the leaves to be inserted underneath. You can, of course, trim the leaves down too if the stems are too long or they don’t tuck under easily.

27. Add your sentiment with some foam tape.

28. Finish by adding gems from Gold Mix Color Essential Gems into the centres of the flowers and around the card.
29. Adhere your panel onto a top-folding A2 white heavyweight note card.

30. You are done! If your flowers have lost a little bit of shape whilst you have been assembling the card, then now is the time to fuss around and make sure they are popped back up.

That brings me to the end of the card. I hope my tutorial has given you an idea of how to use these dies for dimensional flowers. If you would like to see more of my cards, I would love to have you join me over on my blog, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube. In the meantime, thank you so much for spending time with me here on the blog today. I hope that you have a great day!

Spellbinders Supplies:

Other Supplies

Neenah Solar White Classic Crest 80 & 110lb cardstock, Thin Foam Tape, Embellishment Wand, Ball/Stylus Tool