Merry Christmas! (Tutorial, too!)

May God bless all of you and fill you with his deep, everlasting love today and every day! 

And may you extend that same great love to everyone in your life. God loved us before we loved Him - what a tremendous gift and great example for us to follow! Let's show that same love to the world through kindness, friendship, and of course, creativity!

With that said, here is a little tutorial on making these tattered flower ornaments! (Look a little familiar? I used one of these for my last 12 Tags of Christmas undertaking. :)

Supplies: 

Old cardboard - preferably of the cereal box kind of thickness

Canvas

Burlap

Tulle

Brown ink, such as Tim Holtz's Walnut Stain or Gathered Twig Distress Stain

Baker's twine, preferably in red and white

Tattered Florals die (for this ornament, I used the largest flower)

Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Pearl

1/16" hole punch 

Tissue Tape

The cardboard base

1. Take your cardboard and cut (6) big flowers using the Tattered Florals die. 

2. Distress the edges of your cardboard flowers with Distress Stain and an emery board, or distress tool.

3. Crumple each cardboard flower by hand until each one has a slightly weathered look. 

4. Using a 1/16" hole punch, punch a hole on the end of one petal per flower. (This is where you will string your baker's twine through.) 

5. Punch a 2/8" hole in the center of each cardboard flower. Set aside.

The canvas middle

6. Take your canvas and cut out 12 big flowers. 

7. Lightly distress the edges of your canvas flowers with your fingers, scissors, or other distress tool. Ink the edges with brown Distress Stain. 

8. Punch or cut a 2/8" hole in the center of each canvas flower. Since this is fabric and it has lots of fibers, you may need to use your scissors to create cuts as a hole punch doesn't always work. 

9. Make (6) stacks of canvas flowers so that you have (2) canvas flowers per stack. 

10. Place each stack of canvas flowers onto a cardboard flower. Place each stack of flowers in a cardboard box and spray with Pearl Glimmer Mist. Let dry.

The burlap and tulle center

11. Take your burlap and cut 6 circles, about 3 1/2" in diameter. Don't try to make them perfect - part of the fun is making them a little lopsided as it produces better results! 

12. For each burlap circle you cut, fold the circle in half, then roll. Glue the bottom of your burlap together and use a paperclip to help the glue bond faster to your burlap. Remove paperclip when glue has dried, then set aside.

13. Cut your tulle into (6) 5" long pieces. Take a piece of tulle and fold it in half. Place one of your rolled up burlap pieces and place in the middle of your tulle. Do this for each piece of tulle and burlap. These are the center "blossoms" in your flower. 

Assembling your flower

14. Take each tulle-wrapped burlap and stick it through each stack of canvas and cardboard flower stack. 

15. Part of the tulle-wrapped burlap will be sticking out of the back of your flower, so just cover it with some Tissue Tape. 

16. Cut (6) pieces of 9" long baker's twine.

17. Run the baker's twine through the 1/16" hole you punched in each cardboard flower and tie.  

There you have it! Merry Christmas, everyone!