How To Tueday

 I know it is Wednesday.
BUT yesterday (Tuesday) I had a little tutorial up on the Pebbles blog!

   

April showers bring May flowers, right?!!
Well I want to show you how to make an easy, but super fun flower using the twist ties that Pebbles makes!
You can find twist ties in the With Love and Hip Hip Hooray collections. {I used the Hip Hip Hooray twist ties to make this flower} 

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To start, fold the twist ties in half.

The twist ties have a pattern on one side and are solid on the other side. This will provide a nice variety of colors and contrast for your flower.

Go ahead! Don’t be afraid!
Just use the whole package and fold all of the twist ties in half!
And please don’t worry about making sure they are all folded perfectly in half.
If they are uneven, your flower will be more interesting!

Now punch a 1 ½” circle out of white cardstock.
You don’t have to use 1 ½” punch if you don’t have it.
You can use a bigger or smaller size - 1 ½” is just what is used in this example.
This is just going to be a base to attach the twist ties to, so it will be covered up ultimately.

Using adhesive dots (or your favorite strong adhesive), adhere the folded twist ties around the punched circle. 

Don’t worry about lining up the twist ties exactly or making sure they are even. 

That's too much trouble! 

Just have fun with it and let it look a little messy!

Your flower will look something like this when you have all the twist ties adhered to the circle punch:

The last thing to do is to add a center to the flower.
Punch another circle out of white cardstock.
This time punch it slightly smaller at 1 ¼”.  

Once again, you don’t have to use this size punch. 

You could use the 1 ½” punch again and it would work fine!
Or even go bigger!
(You really just want to make sure that your punch is bigger than the stitched dimensional circle that you are going to add next).
Then adhere the circle to the center of the flower so that it covers up the folded parts of the twist ties.
Finally, add a stitched dimensional circle to the center of the punched circle. 
And there you have it!
Your flower is finished!

You could use this flower as a large embellishment on a scrapbook page.
Or you could use it on the front of a “springy” mini-album or card. 

If I can get my hands on some more packs of the twist ties, I am going to make a few more flowers, attach them to straws, and put them in a brightly colored vase for a fun centerpiece on our kitchen table! 
You could even use it to jazz up an otherwise boring gift bag like I did here.

{it is really bugging me that the "for you" is crooked}
{but apparently it is not bugging me enough to fix it and take another picture}
{ha!}
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Well I hope your Tuesday was great and I hope your Wednesday is better!
:)
gretchen