Scrapbook Flowers

This project has been in the works for a while.

Last Spring, I decided to do another floral mosaic. Around Mother's Day, I picked out a sheet of scrapbook paper to use as my inspiration.

I selected some flowers and leaves from the paper and set those on my background.

I painted the backing red because I thought it would be a nice contrast, and began on the stems of the flowers.

I used 3/8" paper for this project.

I was making pretty good progress at first and convinced myself that I would be done with it in a month.

I got distracted though, with preparation for the Fall Festival, and the project took a lot longer than I originally imagined. Like, several months longer.

I love the stem of this flower and how the different quilling techniques work so well together.

I particularly like these green leaves, too.

I find that I procrastinate about moving on when I've completed something I really like and I worry about liking the rest of it just as much. That was definitely in play here.

I outlined the leaves and each section of the flowers with black to help clearly define them.

I actually ended up really liking this larger flower too. It took me a while to move on to the background.... and I wish I held off on it longer. 

The background, that I planned, though a narrower paper at 1/4", ended up being much too busy for the flowers.

I may eventually use some watered-down paint in white or black, or maybe red?, to help the background fade more into the background.

UPDATE! March 2024 Because I love those flowers so much, I decided that I wanted to frame this piece, which, of course, means that I went back and modified the background so that I would be happy with that too. I realized that I would need to add more to it, as well, so that there wouldn't be awkward gaps on the edges.

I filled in the corners with more 1/4" width pieces. To lighten the background, I tried paint, but realized quickly that the moisture was going to ruin the coils. So instead, I lightly went over the background with a white chalk pencil.

If I were to redo this piece, I would use a more muted or light monotone background, but I am satisfied with the solution. And it looks amazing in this frame that I painted!