Heartfelt Creations March Alumni Blog Hop

Welcome to the March Heartfelt Creations Alumni Blog Hop! Each month, on the last Friday of the month, the Heartfelt Creations Alumni Team participates in a Blog Hop! The March Hop starts 8am EST on Friday, March 30th and closes Monday,April 2nd at midnight. 

Be sure to visit each blog on the hop, and leave a comment, because one fortunate Blogger will be chosen to receive a $25 gift card to Heartfelt Creations! The winner will be announced on the Heartfelt Creations Blog and Facebook Page on Wednesday, March 4th. The winner should contact Heartfelt Creations at socialmedia@heartfeltcreations.us with "Winner of the March Alumni Hop" in the subject line.

This hop is now closed. The winner is...DENISE BRYANT, chosen from Martine Smith's Blog! Congratulations, Denise!

You should be coming to my blog from Amarilys Doria's Blog. After visiting me, head on over to Sarah Miller's Blog. For a list of the Alumni Blogs, see the end of the post.

My project for this month was one that I wanted to give up on part way through, but I am so happy I kept going! I love the end result!

I decided to give the Heartfelt Creations Art Foam Paper a try. (The paper pack comes with 10 sheets of white art foam.) I am not a big fan of foam, but I had some store credit, so I purchased a pack of this product to try. After a few disasters, I finally was able to create these lovely flowers! Art foam is NOT the same as working with paper, as I found out! I almost gave up, but happy I didn't! 

I added my flowers to this simple, 6" x 6" card. It turned out better than I could have imagined! 

If you have never worked with the foam before, I recommend that you watch THIS video from Heartfelt Creations. If you want to see foam flowers that are so beautiful you will want a whole bouquet of them, watch some of the videos by my lovely teammate Archana (click HERE)!  She is a great teacher and I learned a lot from her! 

To start out, I stamped my flower images onto the foam with Staz-on ink. Unfortunately, the ink I used to stamp images was a pale brown, and it does not show up very well. I then colored the flowers with different pigment and archival inks. I had a lot of trouble with the ink smearing, but after allowing them to dry overnight, they seemed to be fine. You have to add a LOT more ink to get the deeper colors. 

I used the matching dies to cut out all the flower petals.  

The key to shaping the foam, is HEAT. (I tried water with less than stellar results.) For  a heat source, some folks use a low-power heat tool or an iron on a low setting. My heat tool could blow your house down, so it did not work very well. Plus, it gets super hot, and it made the foam have a bad smell as it heated. I did not feel like getting out an iron, so I used this little hair straightener that I use to iron ribbon. Using tweezers to hold the foam flowers against the hot iron worked pretty well. 

Once my flowers were shaped and cooled, I added a bit more ink to some areas. I also wanted to add some stamens. I have loads of them, including THESE from Heartfelt Creations. 

This flower is made from the Classic Rose stamp and die. The stamens are an old product that has been in my stash for ages. It has one large central stamen with a bunch of small ones all around. This stamen is attached to a wire, making it so easy to thread through the petals. Since I added a stamen, this is not really a rose, I guess...it is some hybrid that has no name....it's just pretty! {smile}  

This is a smaller version of the "rose," colored with orange and yellow inks. The stamens are the Heartfelt Creations Bright Pearl Stamens - Small. These stamens are on thread rather than wire. 

I also made a few flowers using the Flowering Dogwood stamp and die set (the largest and smallest flowers shown here). I wish I had used an other color of stamen rather than the pink. (It's not like I don't have every color under the sun!!)

I used a dark gray cardstock to make a 6" x 6" card, then used layers of the Flowering Dogwood Paper Collection to create the card front. The image is one of the pre-printed images from the collection.

The foam is so thin and delicate that the card is far lighter than one made with an equal amount of paper or pre-made flowers. 

I added more stamens to the card just to create some extra texture. I have a huge bin of these things that I will never use them all up in flower-making!  

Thanks for hopping by! Hop on over to  Sarah Miller's Blog next. DON'T FORGET...POST A COMMENT FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN A $25 GIFT CARD TO HEARTFELT CREATIONS!

March Heartfelt Creations Alumni Blog Hop List:
Kathy Clement
Amarilys Doria
Gloria Stengel - YOU ARE HERE!
Sarah Miller
Vicki Dutcher
Alissa Wells
Martine Smith
Archana Joshi
Deneen Treble

Heartfelt Creations Products:
Classic Rose Cling Stamp Set
Classic Rose Die
Flowering Dogwood Paper Collection
Flowering Dogwood Cling Stamp Set
Flowering Dogwood Die
Art Foam Paper
Bright Pearl Stamens - Small
Memento Dye Ink Pad - Rhubarb Stalk
Deluxe Flower Shaping Kit

Other Products:
Cardstock: Hammermill White, CutCardStock Flavours Gourmet Squid Ink
Ink: StazOn Saddle Brown, Colorbox Pigment Orchid, Ruby, Cupid, Turtle, Lettuce, Moss Green, Banana Custard, Sweet Melon
Stamens: Wild Orchid Craft Baby Pink, Large ivory and yellow stamen from my stash 
Adhesive: ATG tape, foam tape, tacky glue, hot glue