I {heart} messages

.....from followers and lovely emails saying hi and asking about how I do things :) Its a massive compliment to me and I always appreciate it :)

I recently had an email from a lovely reader called Kellie Daley asking me about the rolled roses Ive been using on my work alot lately-they are a wee bit addictive hehehe Kellie asked if I could tell her how I make mine more dimensional than other rolled roses so I quickly volunteered to do a quick tutorial to share how I make them so here you go lovely I hope you like it :)

I must add these where not my original idea I was shown how to make them at creative block 2 years ago and have just remembered how much fun they are :D

Heres a quick tutorial on how I made mine.....

Heres a quick list of what you need and how to do it

You will need:

Thick patterned paper or cardstock (I used bo bunny pp's)
scissors
ink
glue (450 is good it dries nice and quick)
sandpaper


The main steps are as follows:

Cut out some squares of patterned paper ( the smaller the square the smaller the rose-Ive done 3 roses to display this ;-))

Cut into the squares a snail shape (like the ones we used to make in kindy or those spirally things we used to hang off the ceiling) Snip off the excess from the square. Dont snip off the little curly tail in the middle we need that later ;-)

Use your fingernail to gently turn over the outer edge so it has a little lip- do this for the whole snail shape.

You can now ink the edges if you like.

Starting at the end fold a small piece to your left as shown in the picture and start rolling it around tightly until you get to the end of the snail. If you get a long bit sticking out of the middle you can snip a little bit off with your scissors.

Keep holding the snail tightly and add a blob of glue to the little curly tail bit and press it to the bottom of the roll. Gently let it loosen slightly to make a rose shape you desire-if you want a tight rose just let it loosen a little bit ,if you want a big loose rose let it loosen more....hope this makes sense :$

Hold the rose with your finger and thumb until it is firm enough to hold, then you can ink,paint or sand the edges.

The final step I do in once it has dried I place the rose on the table and with the palm of my hand I gently press on it to smoosh it down a bit (hehehe im good at the technical terms hey LOL) this makes it more rose-ish I think ;-)

Anywhoo they are a great way to make matching embellies or to use up scraps :D

If you have a go make sure you leave me a link so I can have a lookie :)

Heres a sneaky of  a LO I did using the roses I made in this tutorial

Hope you all liked the tutorial :)

Who wants a tutorial on how I do my vintagey backgrounds?

Thanks for visiting and please take the time to say hi and let me know you popped by :)

Krissy xx