My first tutorial!! Lacy Glass Flowers!!!

Here is my version of a glass flowers, inspired by Laura’s plate glass flowers (Following the Paper Trail).  Of course I changed them up quite a but but the basics are the same.  Of course mine have the Heartfelt Creations flare to them, here are the flowers that I made for this tutorial…  Hope you like them

so lets get started, Materials used on this as follows;  Clear acetate,  HC makes a great clear cardstock perfect for these, I used the following stamps from HC as well Flora Grande and Distressed Leaves, my flower centers are sold by HC they are the Alexandria Diamond Flower Centers.   Now for the non Heartfelt Creations products I have some lace, Staz-On ink in Timber brown and glossy accents.  As far as tools are concerned I used scissors, tweezers, heat gun, crop-a-dile (any hole punch will work), hot glue gun and a paint brush… not included in the photo.  Go easy on me this is my first ever tutorial!

First thing is to prep the lace.  I used a cheap lace because that is all I can get in this town and I cut off the top part so it would lay flat.

Then I cut the clear cardstock down to the width on my lace…

now you need the acetate your glossy accents and your paint brush

Apply a generous amount of glossy accents to the acetate

And spread it out with the paint brush so that you have a thin layer

Now lay your lace over the glue and press down.  I ran my paint brush back over it so that I could ensure there was a good bond between the lace and the plastic.  At this point you can leave it to dry by itself but I don’t have that sort of patience so I heat it carefully with the heat gun… make sure you don’t get to close and pat it down with your hand as you go.

Once it is no longer tacky trim off the access material and here is what you are left with

Now comes the fun part, stamp the flowers on the acetate sheets using staz-on I am making 2 large fowers double layered and one single layered flower.  Using the stamp set listed above I stamped 2 of the largest flowers and 3 of the medium flowers.

I also stamped some leaves; you can heat set the stamped images to make sure it won’t smear.

Now the most tedious part is cutting these out.  I tried my die cut machine and it cut through the plastic just fine but the lace gave it a bit of trouble… I have a cuttlebug. It probably would have done it ok with a shim or a tighter machine but I decided just to use my scissors.

And now the FUN part, take out your heat gun and start playing with these puppies…  I found what worked best for me was to do a few petals at a time hold up the flowers and leaves using your tweezers and heat till you can see it start to droop and start shaping, they will be warm but not hot enough to hurt,  Work quickly as it cools fast and then it isn’t pliable anymore.  I found working in small areas, 2 to 3 petals at a time was easiest

If you don’t’ like the way the flower is shaped beat it up till it goes flat and try again!

Do this to all your pieces till they are all shaped the way you like them.

Now if you are using vintage buttons that don’t lay flat (like I am) use your crop-a-dile to make holes in your flower centers this will help you flower sit right.

Now gather up your layers for the individual flowers

And assemble using hot glue… I tried glossy accents first and although it could have worked I just didn’t have the patience… Hot glue is my glue of choice when working with difficult products. 

Here is a variation that I did using the Posy Patch Flowers and Sophia Diamond Flower Center.  This version uses 2 large posies and 1 of the smaller flower.

Well I hope you liked this tutorial and I really hope you will let me know if you use it on one of your projects… I would love to see!