There are die-cut flower shapes to be had, but I wanted to try making my own by cutting freehand shapes, and I am so happy with the results. You may feel better drawing your shapes out first, but I just took the scissors and cut. I made random curves in a spiral cut, and a rough heart shape for the outer petals.
I made a little slit at the bottom of the outer petals (at the point of the hearts) because that sort of helps them to fit to the bottom better when you glue them on.
Next, I colored the curvy edges of the spiral and the tips of the petals with some gold gel pen ink. Colored pencils also work nicely for coloring edges. It gets messy, so let it dry before you turn them over and do the other side! Do both sides.
When they are all dry, you can distress your paper spiral slightly, by placing it on a soft surface (I used my bedspread) and mashing it down a bit with something like the rubber end of your quilling tool. It may start to curl up, and that's fine. It will make it more rosey! Now, you are ready to roll! You can start by hand, which I find difficult, or you can use a quilling tool to start your roll. You will begin at the outer part of your spiral.
You might need to take it off the tool after a few rolls because it's all pretty irregular, and I find it easier to hold the rose between my thumb and forefinger to keep it in place during the main rolling. After it's all rolled up, it should look like this at the bottom. Put a small drop of glue in the hole, and cover it over with the bottom circle. It can actually fold over to become another petal. Smooth it down and hold it tightly without bending up your inner flower for a few seconds, so the glue can bond.
I folded that last petal upwards and glued it to the hole.
Here is the finished inner rose. It could be all finished, and go no further, but I like the effect that adding the extra outer petals makes!
Now, the way those petals got so realistic looking is by me, again just using my bedspread on my bed, mashing the shapes with the rubber end of my quilling tool. It gives them a perfect curve.
To add the outer petals to your rose, begin by gluing one of the smaller realistic-looking petals with a small bit of glue to the bottom. You can achieve different effects by gluing either curved side in, or curved side out. On this rose, I glued a few curved side in, hugging my inner rose (heehee) and then I turned the outside petals around so they curve outward.
Keep gluing until you're happy with your rose. When the glue has dried, you can mess with the edges of your petals to get them to curl under and look even better!
Happy Rose Making!Love, Boffo
