Gallery Idol Round 3 - Fabric meets Paper!!

Ok, here I am in the Top 10 of Gallery Idol Competition run by Papercrafts Magazine. I'm SOO excited to have made it this far, thank you for all of your votes. You helped me get this far!! The theme for round 3 is 'Fabric Meets Paper'.

I spent ages playing with different ideas but I went with Kanzashi in the end. If you haven't heard of Kanzashi before here's a little bit about it. Kanzashi are Japanese flowers created by folding small sqaures of fabric into petals then gluing them together. Here's a link to a tutorial. You get nice crisp lines if you iron the folds. I covered a button with the same fabric for the centre. The leaves I cut from some green felt and stitched a line along the middle.

For the banner I used the same technique, in Kanzashi these little triangles are called 'falls', they're usually attached on one of the shorter sides of the triangle but I turned them on their sides to make a cute little banner!! They're glued to a strip of pink ribbon (no sewing involved!)

I used the Say it Loud stamp set by Waltzingmouse Stamps for the sentiment stamped in black, carefully cut out and attached with foam pads. I stamped the wishes text using True red ink. The white backround is embossed using the In Stitches embossing folder.

The pretty floral paper is from Crate Paper's Emma's Shoppe. I die-cut the pink border using Marianne Design Lace border die from felt. I added some yellow ric-rac across the join.

Here's the fabric I used to make the Kanzashi flowers and banner. I LOVE this fabric, I bought it ages ago from a local fabric shop. I love the pattern, the color combo, it's just so cheerful and pretty. I'm not usually a red fan but I love it in this mix of colors.. the fact it's a floral probably helps too!! : ) This was the color inspiration for my card.

I made a few Kanzashi flowers and falls before I picked the 'right one' for my card!! I love these flowers, you can make them any size, the size of your squares for each petal work out to be the size of your finished flower. You can add whatever centre you like too, covered buttons, brads, simple buttons...

Ok, that's it. I hope you like my card and if you do PLEASE VOTE for me... : ) Here's the link to the gallery at the Papercrafts Magazine website. You can VOTE for my card directly by clicking on the photo at the top of my sidebar. I can't make it to the next round (the Top 5) without your votes. Thanks for getting me this far, I'm really grateful!! Whatever happens, I've had lots of fun, made new friends and stretched my creativity, so it's all good!! : )