Flower pounding

Did you know you can make a print by pounding flowers with a hammer? You can - but even better than that (and much quieter too) is to use your Wizard. Yes, you heard me right!

My pink card uses these Spellbinders dies: Classic Lace Border Grand, Labels One, double ended tags.

I went into my yard and collected some blooms and gave it a try. Some flowers work, some just don't. The drier type flowers seem to work the best. I live in Phoenix, and the ones that worked best for me were the Bougainvillea and the Vinca. You can see creations using both of them here. The pink card uses the bougainvillea (there are some of the petals around my finished card) and the bottom card uses the vinca.

I am planning on creating a video soon, to show you just how this is done, but for now, here are the steps.

1) go into your yard (not your neighbor's - they may get mad) and pick some blooms.

2) get all the bugs off of them before you bring them into your house. (Ask me how I know! Ewwww)

3) This is how I stacked my sandwich:
White Master Mat
Watercolor paper
Flower- right side down on the watercolor paper
Waxed paper (you could use another piece of watercolor paper, a folded paper towel or just some scrap paper.
Tan Embossing Mat
White Master Mat

4) Run this through your Wizard and your flowers are pounded. Just remove the poor squashed flowers and voila! you have a print of your flowers. It's gorgeous.

Now here are a few things I learned:
Do not attempt to use your waxed paper again. It has pigment from the previous project and may mess up what you are trying to do. Don't ask me how I know. lol

Try different flowers, realizing some will not work at all, they will just leave a slooshy mess. I tried it with leaves too. They left a very very light impression.

Light colored flowers really don't leave much of a pattern at all. Use deep colored flowers for the best results.

The colors will change. The blooms I used on both cards were a dark pink. The vincas made a purple print. Interesting.

Experiment with with you have. If you try it, leave me a link to your creation. I would love to see what you come up with!



On this purple card, I used Spellbinders: Butterfly Impressabilities and Petite Ovals LG.

My purple card is featured on Spellbinders blog today. Why not pop over there and check it out.

Thanks for stopping by!