Antique-y 'Flower-Topper' card (with Maria's gorgeous template)

The metal background on this is is the dark faux tin tile that I made in this tutorial with Tinfoil, a Scor-Pal & a Cuttlebug. It's coloured with black Stazon & Stream alcohol ink by Adirondack (Tim Holtz.) The neat thing is that it looks like metal but you can pierce it really easily for faux stitching or real stitching, or to accent the grid with brads.



The flower is made using Maria's gorgeous flower template (that she created in Illustrator; she's my hero! No exaggeration.) Here's how I made this version of it:


1) Printed the flowers out onto Tim Holtz patterned paper (Distressables 0733 "time")

2) Scored with the Scor-Pal along a few line to make it textured

3) Cut them out. Scored a tiny circle of a grid in the middle to mark where to stitch

4) Pierced at the ends of the grid lines & stitched

5) Touched up the circle with a black marker (a sneaky way to make it look evenly round)



The crotchet trim came off of one of a pair of doilies that I got at a thrift store for 49 cents. They were really stained, so I didn't feel too guilty about cutting 'em up. If you want to use lace/crotchet and you wanna shape it, you can use spray starch (laundry section at the grocery store) :o)

What are the odds that I've had this Baja Blue coloured tea cup since I was a kid??? My new favourite new in colour from SU!?! *GRIN* I flipped when it matched, LOL.

Antiquing embroidery thread:

Stick it in your tea! I have a fair amount of embroidery floss but no off-white, so I had to make some. I was drinking tea at the time & just stuck it in there. You can use coffee too. (Or onion skins even, but tea smells better! LOL) Of course you could always use reinkers for colours too...

1) Choose dye (coffee, tea, or reinkers...) Reinkers are great mixed with water or blended to make new colours

2) Put embroidery thread in the liquid

3) Let sit until dark enough (warm tea seems to soak in more readily) I nuked mine. :o)

4) Remove from the liquid & gently squeeze the extra moisture out

5) Dry it (You can use a paper towel and run the thread through it... the friction dries it. You can hang it to dry, or you can use a hairdryer or hair straightener...)

Homemade Antique Paper:

The sentiment is made by punching a square out of this scanned & printed page of a vintage dictionary:

Feel free to print this if you like :o)


Here's how I made the paper:

1) Took a sheet of Naturals White cardstock

2) Antiqued it by rubbing a damp (used) tea bag over the sheet of cardstock.

3) Ironed it dry

4) Scanned & cropped the antique dictionary page

5) Printed the text onto the tea-stained paper


The sentiment was created by punching with a 1 1/4 inch square punch, edging it with a black marker, mounting it on two punched circles (one silver cardstock & one in Baja Blue.) The Baja Blue circle was fringed first. Then I put it on a Nestabilities scallop circle & stuck it on with Dimensionals.

Thanks so much for stopping by! :O)