Basics: Beading a Blossom (A Year of Flowers Sunflower)

Happy first day of November! (November already!?! That's crazy, hey?)

I've received a couple of emails from the kindest people letting me know that my blog was the first place they started to learn about stamping and cardmaking. (They made me feel so very honoured and fortunate.) What a great privilege to be able to share that beginning!

In that spirit, I thought I'd include some of the basic things I love to do that I've never done tutorials for. This one is for one of my favourite things: making homemade primas from stamped flowers. They make really affordable embellishments on cards. Specifically, I lurve to add beads to them. There are so many variations of colour & sparkliness, shapes & sizes of beads and they are so affordable & easily found.

I thought the sweet sunflower from Melanie's A Year of Flowers set would be supah cute with seed beads in the center like little sunflower seeds. Here's how-to...



Step 1) Stamp, Colour & Cut a flower.

This A Year of Flowers sunflower is stamped in Stazon, coloured with Copics: Cadmium Yellow Y15, Cadmium Orange YR07, Lipstick Red R29 (The Copics smudge the Stazon a little, but that's the ink I have, so...)



Step 2) Put a circle of Crystal Lacquer in the center of the sunflower

To make your the lacquer easier to work with just let it set up a little for a few seconds (about 15-20 seconds works for me.) It makes it thicken and it will slide around less. If it sets too much, you can add more fresh lacquer.



Step 3) Dump some beads on top of the lacquer.

If you have beads that are sparkly from the side & you want that to show, you can drop them on one at a time and position them on their side with the tip of a paper piercer or scissors.




Step 4) Press the beads down.

You can use your finger (or you can use an implement like a cork. Crystal Lacquer is really sticky.)



Step 5) Perfect the placement of the beads using a tool to move them around

I often use my paper piercer or scissors to move the beads around where I want 'em. If you have gaps in your beads you can add more adhesive, if needed, & add more beads where you like.

Let your beads dry, and then you have a flower with some interest in the center:



You can check out the magic Melanie worked with her A Year of Flowers set & this Ambrosia paper by Basic Grey here and some sunflowers that are simply stunning here & here

Hope your day is a most fabulous one!