TCP Tuesday 211-Bloom

It’s time for another The Cat's Pajamas Tuesday challenge. This week, Jen’s our hostess and she’s created this fun photo collage for inspiration. I used a tiny white pail from my stash of alterable items to make a little decorative piece inspired by the photos.

I used TCP’s Flower Buttons CutUps dies to cut a bunch of different colored flowers from felt. The pieces were mixed and matched to make a trio of flowers. I used pink baker’s twine and a button to secure the layered flowers together, then added a sturdy floral wire stem to each one.

To dress up the white pail a bit, I cut a strip of green felt grass using the CutUps Grass Border die. The grass is attached to the inside of the pail with ScorTape.

 I die cut a small tag from white cardstock, then stamped the “bloom” sentiment from the Bloom set on the tag in pink ink. The tag’s attached to the pail’s handle with some coordinating rose seam binding. The final step was adding the flowers to fill the pail. I didn't have any floral foam on hand, so I had to do a little thinking to come up with a way to keep the flowers in place once I set them in the pail. Here's a little photo tutorial showing how I got them to stay in place.

First, I cut a circle slightly larger than the diameter of the pail. Then, I used another smaller circle die to emboss a smaller circle inside the larger one. After doing this, it occurred to me that you don’t need to emboss—you could just trace a smaller circle inside the larger one, but anyway . . .

I used the outline of the smaller circle as a guide for cutting a series of small V shaped cuts into the edge of the larger circle. I cut from the edge of the large circle right to the mark at the smaller circle until I’d gone all around the circle and it looked like this. Then, I folded each tiny triangle tab down.

After punching three holes in the circle, one for each of the flower stems, I placed the circle inside the pail. The tabs hold the circle piece in place inside the pail. Once the flower stems are set into the holes, they’ll stay in place, too.

Be sure to check out Alma’s blog for all the details on this week’s TCP Tuesday challenge and how you can win this week’s Cat Cash prize.

Materials Used: 
Bloom stamp set, CutUps Flower Buttons and Grass Border dies, felt, rose seam binding, Divine Twine pink baker’s twine (The Cat’s Pajamas); Green Galore and Whisper White cardstock (Stampin’ Up!); Vivid Tea Rose ink (Clearsnap); buttons (Papertrey Ink); floral wire; white metal pail