How to make paper roses

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Girl's Birthday Card, Inside

To learn how to make the cover for this card click here. To learn how to make a pop out cake click here.

To decorate this cake you will need:

• Decorative Edged Scissors 
• Zebra Felt
• Black, White, and Pink cardstock
• Hole punch
• X-acto Knife
• Small Paint Brush
• White Paint
• Orange cardstock (I used the paint swatches you can get at the store for free)
• Cutting board
• Double sided tape
• Glue (Elmer's glue would work fine)
• Rubber Cement

Note: Attach all pieces when told to

1. Cut the edges edge of the white cardstock 1 centimeter in on all sides
2. Cut a strip of felt 5 inches long and 1/2 tall for the third tier
3. Cut a strip of pink cardstock 4 inches long and 1/2 in. tall. 
4. Cut a white strip that is 4 inches long and 1/2 in. tall. Trim the edges with decorative edge scissors. Attach this strip to the pink cardstock you cut in step 3.
5. Cut a strip of felt that is 3 inches long and 1/2 in. tall.
6. Use a stencil to draw flowers on pink cardstock or free-style it. Cut them out with an X-Acto knife. Make 3 pink flowers. 
7. Use a hole punch to cut  circles out of white cardstock. These are going to be the centers for your flowers.
8. Draw a simple 5 petaled flower on the zebra felt. Cut it out with your scissors.
9. Attach all of the strips and flowers Using double sided tape. The strips of felt and paper go in the middle or each tier. Two pink flowers go on the 3rd tier, 1 pink flower goes on the top tier. Put the zebra flower on the middle tier.
10. This card could fit up to 16 candles. 
11. Cut pink and black candles out of cardstock. These are 1 1/2 inches tall and 1/2 in. thick.
12. Use a small paint brush to paint white polka dots on the candles.
13. Cut out candle flames from orange cardstock or from a paint swatch.
14. Put a little glue on the top of each candle and attach the candle flames.
15. Put double sided tape on the bottom of the front side of the candle. 
16. Peel off the backing on the double sided tape and attach the candles behind the tier.
17. Before you glue the liner to the card, measure the edges of the cover in 1 centimeter so that the liner looks even.
18. Coat the liner with rubber cement and place onto the card. 
19. If there is any rubber cement seeping out of the edges rub it off with an eraser or your finger.

Girl's Birthday Card-Cover

To make this cover for a girl's birthday card you need:

• Pink cardstock
• White cardstock 
• Sticky pads 
• Zebra felt
• Sharpie
• Hole punch
• Pink brads
• The basic materials (X-acto knife, ruler, pencil, cutting mat...)

1. Mark your pink cardstock at the half mark. 
2. Cut the felt to fit the size of the front of the card, 8 1/2 by 5 1/2 in.
3. The vertical sides are cut to be 1 1/2 in. the horizontal sides are cut to be 2 in.
4. Slice a hole in each corner to attach brads. Then attach them.
5. Glue it (using concrete cement) onto the cover of the pink cardstock.
6. For the tag in the middle cut a rectangle 5 in. by 3 in. fold in half hot dog style and then (still folded) fold in burger style. Draw a curve from top to bottom as shown below. Be sure that the open edges are facing away from you. Cut out that curve, unfold it and you have the tag.
   
   
   
   
   
    
7. Write with your sharpie "Happy Birthday"
8. I made a pink outline of the tag by tracing it onto another sheet of pink cardstock, cutting it out,  folding as I did above and cut the edges smaller then cutting the inside out.
9. Put the sticky pads on the tag and the outline. Attach the outline on the tag and line the tag into the middle of the card.
10. Cut out flowers from pink and white cardstock. Attach them using rubber cement or double sided tape. Use the hole punch to create white dots to use as the centers of flowers.

Mothers Day Card

I made this card for my mom for mothers day, expect another tutorial for a father's day card.

To make this Mother's Day  Card you will need:

• Dark purple cardstock
• Light purple spray paint
• Iridescent sparkles
• Patterned paper
• White ribbon
• Purple button
• White cardstock
• X-Acto Knife + Cutting board
• Rubber Glue
• Double sided tape

1. Mark your purple cardstock at the half mark.
2. Spray paint it a little bit.
3. While still wet sprinkle sparkles on it.
4. Once dry measure a piece of patterned paper that reflects the colors 5 1/2 inches tall by 4 1/4 inches wide.
5. Cut a piece of ribbon 8 1/2 inches tall.
6. Cut a flower out of white cardstock.
7. Attach the patterned paper using rubber cement. It is 1/2 in. from the bottom edge and 1/4 in. from the left edge.
8. Use double sided tape to attach the ribbon 1/2 in. away from the left edge.
9. Glue the button to the flower and then glue that flower to the bottom right edge of the card.
10. Let it dry, write a sweet message on the inside and it's ready to give to your mom.

Using Ribbons

Ribbons are a great way to add texture to your card. It is good to have many types of ribbons because they can add something sweet to your card. 

There are many different ways that you can use a ribbon on your card. These are just a few ideas to get you started. Examples of cards that I've used ribbon on are shown below.

Girl's Birthday Card, Click here to learn how to make it

Graduation card click here to learn how to make it

Mother's Day Card click here to learn how to make it

Stencils

You can cut paper to create stencils that you can reuse over and over if you wish to spray paint the design onto your cardstock or you can glue (using rubber cement) the stencil onto the card as I did in the above picture.

You can cut your own stencils or you can buy them at the store.

To cut your own stencils find a design that you like (or create your own) open up the design that you chose on a photo editing program (Such as Gimp) and change the opacity so that the black lines turn into a gray that is light enough to see. This will save you a lot of ink and make it harder to see the lines when looking at that side once the gray is cut out.

Make sure your blade on your x-acto knife is not dull or you will tear the paper

Pop up birthday card

To make a pop up cake you will need:

• A cutting board/mat
• 2 sheets of Cardstock
• X-acto knife
• Pencil
• Eraser
• Steel Ruler
• Eraser

Hint: Add the decorations in step 2 if you want to decorate your cake! There is a video at the bottom of the page that might help you if you have any problems!

1. Mark your card at the half mark so the cake will be exact. Use the measurements that you want, but the longest that you can make the tiers are 5 inches. I suggest that you use the measurements for the girls birthday cake at the bottom if you are going to make 3 tiers. I generally make a 3-tiered cake with the the bottom tier being the biggest to the top tier being the smallest. Use the picture below as an example.
2. Cut along the marks with your X-acto knife. You will want to align your ruler with the marks to make sure that you have straight lines when cutting. Decorate your cake now if you want it to have any designs on it. Also erase all of the lines now too.
3. Add the candles, follow the instructions below
4. Once you have cut all the lines pop out the bottom tier and crease it at the connecting parts. Then fold the card in half. Do this to all of the tiers.

To make the Candles you will need:

• Paint swatches from the store or just paper but these work well
• Ruler
• Paint and small paintbrush if you want the candles to have polka dots or stripes
• Double Sided Tape and glue (regular glue or stick glue)
• Pencil
• X-acto knife and cutting board/mat 

1. Cut out candles that are 1 1/2 inches long by 1/2 inches wide. You may want to decorate them before cutting them out of the desired color.
2. Cut out flames on the top.
3. Attach the flames using glue.
4. Measure behind the cut out cake where your candles will be so that they look even.
5. Put double sided tape on the bottom of the front of the candles.
6. Attach the candles to the cake.

Girl's Birthday Pop Up Card Measurements

To make this girl's birthday pop up use the measurements shown below:

The bottom tier is 3/4 in. off the border of the white cardstock. It is 5 inches long and 2 inches tall. There is a 1/2 in. border between the tiers. 

The middle tier is 4 inches long and 1 3/4 inches tall. There is a 1/2 in. border between the tiers.

The first tier is 3 inches long and 1 1/2 tall.

Follow the instructions above to make the candles and gather the materials you will need.

If you want to learn about how to make the cover for the card click here. If you want to learn how to decorate the inside click here.

The Color Wheel and Complementary Colors

There are 3 primary colors:

• Red
• Blue
• Yellow

When you combine these you get secondary colors such as orange, violet, and green. Using the color wheel is smart and will make your card look better. So now you know some of the basics. Look at for example- the color purple. It there is purple on your card I suggest you use yellow. Where did I get yellow from?  Yellow is on the opposite side of the color wheel from purple so they will look really good when used together. Other colors close to the opposite color would work too, such as purple and green.

Paper Marbling

Paper marbling is the art of printing multicolored designs onto a paper surface. There are many different ways to make a marbled sheet of paper. I'll show a few different ways to do it here is the first.

1. Find a shallow container that is large enough to fit the card's surface on it. 
2. Spray shaving cream onto the surface till it is full.
3. Use a straight edge to smooth it out (A ruler would work perfectly)
4. If you want a pale marbling design flick water colors on the shaving cream surface, then use the end of a paintbrush and swirl it around slightly, lay your card on the shaving cream and press down lightly.  Pick it up and use the straight edge to scrap the shaving cream off. Let it dry. If it is  wrinkled then set under some heavy books overnight.
5. If you want a bright and vivid marbled paper then follow the steps above but use food coloring dyes.

This is an example of paper marbling that I did 

For the next method you will need chalk, a butter knife, a container big enough for the card surface filled with water

1. Over the container of water use the butter knife to scrape the chalk into a powder
2. Once you have enough chalk powder on the surface of the water you can swirl it around a little bit.
3. Lay the paper on top of the water
4. Lift it up and allow to dry
5. Set it under heavy books over night if the paper is wrinkled
6. Spray with a clear coat (Hair spray works too)

This is paper marbling that I made with chalk. It works good as a background or you could paste it to the front of a card.

The third way that you can use to marble paper is shown in the steps below:

1. Use a size to make the inks or paints you are using float on top of the water.
2. Add a variety of colors that contrast (See my page on contrasting colors click here)
3. Use a comb or toothpicks to swirl around the colors. Don't swirl around to much or it will create a brown or gray mess.
4. Lay down your paper (Use a sturdy paper so that it doesn't tear) And use the tips of your fingers to "scratch" the back of your paper.
5. Wear gloves so that you don't get finger prints on the corner of your paper when you are lifting it up.
6. Lay it down on a rack to dry or hang on a clothesline. 

These are all marbled cards that I and my friends have made using the above technique.

Felt

Felt is a fabric that can be a great accent to a card. It is cheap and you can find it in the craft section of your store. I bought some felt today that had a embossed pattern on it that I thought would be cool to use. I also have some patterned felt that I got too- zebra stripes. If course there is plain colored felt too that add nice touch to any card. On Pinterest I found a person who has made many felt cards. Click here to view that page. Why should you use felt? Well felt adds texture to a card and draws the eyes to that subject of interest.

Embossed felt.

There are many different patterns that you can get  felt in.

A card that I made using zebra patterned felt. Click here to learn how to make it

I used embossed felt to sew onto this card that I made, click here to learn how to make it.

Quilling

Quilling is an art form where you roll and shape strips of paper to create decorative designs. If you buy a quilling tool your designs could look like in the picture below:

 A quilling tool offers a clean look and adds a very cool 3D effect to a card.

  (Which I did make for my sister's birthday 2 years ago, it would have been helpful to have a quilling tool)













If you don't have a quilling tool you can do something similar using

• Scissors
• A craft knife
• Cutting board or matt
• circle stencil
• Paper (preferably cardstock)

Cut a circle out of a piece of cardstock using the craft knife and then using the scissors cut a spiral out of the circle. Roll up the spiral and you will create something that would look like a rose. Here's a link to a video that shows you how to do it. The lady uses a punch for the circle, but if you don't have one follow the steps above. Skip to 1:45

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=RNJhImJVpbI&feature=endscreen

An example of homemade roses

Graduation card

 To make this graduation card get some white and black ribbon. If you don't have these (In my case I didn't have black ribbon) Use paper instead, and attach using rubber cement or double sided tape(If not this glue or the tape get a glue that will not wrinkle your cardstock) 1/2 in. from the edge.

 For the lettering on front I used buttons and a thin pointed sharpie to write "Congratulation" and always make sure you have your words spelled right.

The sharpie bled through the paper which I didn't expect which led me to the fancy liner. If you do not wish to have to make a liner I suggest you use a colored pencil.

 For the Liner I used the black colored cardstock that I cut a 1 in. ribbon out of for the front of the card, trimmed the top and bottom 1/2 in. in, and the left edge with scissors that leave a design. I aligned the right edge with the paper to the white cardstock.

Then I used a piece of white printer paper 5 1/2 x 6  and used rubber cement to glue it 1/2 in. from the right side. With the leftover trim I used rubber cement (Or you could use double sided tape) to attach it on the white printer paper on the right side and bottom. With the empty space to the left on the black cardstock I painted a diploma. I wrote inside the card "Wishing you the best of luck in the future" The ______ Family. 

If you are going to use rubber cement, use it in a ventilated area, you don't want to be breathing in the fumes that it has, and also remember to close it so that you don't knock it over opened. It can create quite a mess to clean up (Speaking from experience)

Embossing Foil

To emboss foil you first need to know how to emboss click here to learn.

• So you don't tear the foil you will glue it to piece of scrap card stock and let dry)
• Then place foil face down over the template.
• Use a embossing tool (but I use the end of a crochet needle or a paint brush, it works just as well)
• Rub gently into the cardstock
• When finished turn the paper over and see the raised surface.

If you are going to cut out the shapes, cut them out after you emboss them, not before, it makes it harder.

I made this card for my sister's birthday. I attached a strip of foil to cardstock and embossed it. It really makes the card pop.

Embossing

Embossing is to decorate a surface with a raised design. To emboss you will need:

• Cardstock
• A template
• Embossing tool or end of a crochet needle or paintbrush

To emboss, place the paper face down over the template and press into it with one of your tools. When you are finished flip it over. Once you have practiced this a few times try to emboss foil, click here for the directions.