April Challenge is up for Berry71Bleu!

It's my turn to host the April Challenge for Berry71Bleu! 
I don't know about the weather where you are but here in New England/USA winter just won't go away. Since there aren't any flowers yet blooming in my garden, I decided my challenge would be to create your own flowers! 

This month we challenge you

 to create a project

 using handmade flowers !

There must be at least ONE homemade flower on your project.

 It's not limited to a scrap page-think canvas, home decor,headbands,anything your creative mind can dream up! There are hundreds of flower tutorials out there for flowers made out of paper,felt,cloth,twine,burlap,coffee filters,etc..

For links to all of the flower tutorials pictured above and many more see my Pintrest page here.

Here is my project for inspiration:

We are so blessed to be able to play with the generous products supplied by our sponsors. This month we are featuring 7Dots, Um Wow and The Darkroom Door.I used the papers from the 7 Dots Dreamer Collection (my all time fave) and water distressed my edges with watered down gelatos. I created a background with multiple colors of gelatos, blended with water then stamped with a stamp from the 7 Dots Cold Country Collection. Using the circles from the paper,I created various size Lollipop flowers and tucked them in behind my picture.

The flying bird Um Wow chippie was first colored with gold gelato, Rub n' Buff in patina, then crackled with Ranger Crackle accents. I used UmWow mushroom chippies as foliage by treating them to Stampin' Up Verdigris embossing enamel. I found some beautiful vintage lace at a thrift store and used to create one of handmade flowers and topped it with a Recollection metal flower which was also treated to a patina.

My other flowers were created with coffee filters and Spellbinder Spiral Blossom 1. I spritzed them with Heidi Swapp mists in Gold,Mustard and Turquoise before I rolled them up. Each flower is made up of 2 to 3 blossoms rolled together. The lace pictured above is the same as the lace in my flower and the cameo is from Recollections.

I used the Darkroom Door filmstrip and word strips here,both colored with gelatos and embossed and cracked. The tags tucked in the sides are also Darkroom Door which I shaded and added some seam binding.

This all makes for a chunky layout. I was inspired by a sketch for Once Upon a Sketch and then it took off from there!

I created 3 different types of flowers for this layout and mixed them in with 3 packaged flowers. For the challenge you only have to have at least one handmade flower but you may find it so much fun you make more!

Go to Berry71Bleu to see the prizes and our Challenge rules.
Can't wait to see your beautiful flowers!