How to make pretty paper roses out of heart shapes.

As a scrapbook instructor, I always have to be one step ahead of myself. So while I still have Christmas photos to get into an album, I'm busy making Valentine pages for next month's scrapbook classes. No problem though as I know my students are going to love this next project. It's fun, simple and each rose took me less than five minutes start to finish! They look great on my scrapbook page too. Check out the photo at the bottom of this post for my final result. Meanwhile, here is how to make your own:

1. The roses are made with a series of 19 hearts in different sizes. I used the Cricut and the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge to cut mine out of some pretty pink papers in the following sizes:
              a. Five 2" hearts
              b. Four 1 ½” hearts
              c. Four 1 ¼” hearts
              d. Four 1” hearts
              e. Two ½” hearts
Of course, you could also cut the hearts with punches or even hand-cut them for an interesting look.

2. In addition, you will need a tiny hole punch (a push pin works just as well); scissors; a skewer, stylus or pencil; a brad; some ink and Stickles ( I used Cotton Candy pink).

3. Punch tiny holes in the bottom of each heart.

4. Cut each heart about ¾ of the way in half to make petals. At this stage you can distress and Ink the edges of all petals if you desire.

5. Curl (don’t roll) each petal using a skewer or a stylus.

6. Beginning with the smallest hearts first, layer the hearts onto the brad.

7. Finish with stickles and let dry about 20 minutes.

To make a smaller flower, repeat steps b-e above, but make one extra b size ( 1 1/2") heart.

 And finally, here are some heart-roses on a page using Bo Bunny's Crush line. Have fun making your own heart-roses and if you do, I would love to see your final result! And if you are on Okinawa and would like to join me, the class is at Foster Fine Arts Center on Feb. 17. I would love you to join me!

Playing with my Cricut

Recently I bought a Cricut Expression. I love that I can cut up to 12 x24 if I want to, though just cutting 12x12 is exciting enough for me. I've only got a few cartridges -- and I can see that I'm going to be buying a lot more.

For this page I borrowed the Summer Vacation catridge from a friend as it offers a Ferris wheel shape, perfect for my neighborhood! I glittered it with Martha Stewart glitter so that it very nearly resembles the real thing!

One of things I don't like about the Cricut is the inability to change the weight of the fonts. For the word 'hood' I wanted some letters that were hefty but not tall and my Cricut would not let me do that with the font cartridge I own. So I turned to my Wishblade to cut all the words in the title shown here as it allows me to stretch my letters in any direction I so choose. The Wishblade's downfall is the steep learning curve and though I've had it for 4 or 5 years now, I've never been able to cut anything on it but titles and circles.

So for ease of use, the Cricut is the winner hands down. I can't wait to get some more cartridges so I can get scrappin'! If anyone wants to know what's on my Christmas list this year, just let me know!