Bouquet Bigz Die: Pretty Blooms Made Easy!

Good morning, I have a share today featuring one of the products from the Stampin' Up! Occasions Catalogue. When I first laid eyes on this die, I knew I had to have it. I am a sucker for flowers, and I love that Bigz dies can cut fabric and thicker materials. Today I made pretty flowers to decorate my boxes. 

These two flowers were my first-ever attempt to make a flower with this die, I think they turned out pretty good. That shows you how easy this die is to use. I used  some of the Designer Series Paper from the Annual Catalogue, Confetti Celebration, Flowerpot and Back to Black. I chose to use Blushing Bride Cardstock for one of my flowers since the Flowerpot DSP has that colour in it. 

For my first try, I didn't want too do anything to over-the-top. So I just used the smaller of the petals to make these two flowers. The larger scalloped petals are really BIG. They would have overwhelmed my box.

For the box with the Back to Black DSP, I decided it needed a punch of colour... that's why I went with the Confetti Celebration DSP in the orange and white polka dots. If you know me, you know I love orange and black since they remind my of my favourite holiday HALLOWEEN!! I decided to assemble the bottom layer, then offset the secondary layer. Then I die cut a bunch of the flower center pieces - I had an idea of what it is called... but unsure...  so I looked it up! 

F.Y.I  - The Basic Flower Parts

The flower consists of many different parts. Separated into both male and female. Who knew?! 

The MALE parts: The stamen which is made up of the filament, and anther. It is the pollen producing part of the plant. The number of stamen is usually the same as the number of petals. The anther is the pollen producing part of the stamen. It is usually on top of the long stalk that looks like fine hair. The filament is the fine hair-like stalks that the anther sits on top of. 

The FEMALE parts: The pistil is made up of the stigma, style and ovary. Each pistil is contructed of one to many rolled leaf-like structures. The stigma is the sticky bulb you see in the center of the flowers. It is part of the pistil, which receives the pollen grains on which they germinate. The style is the long stalk that the stigma sits on top of... and the ovary (who knew plants had ovaries!?), which is the part of the plant the is usually at the bottom of the flower - it contains the seeds and turns them into fruit that we eat. The ovary contains ovule which is the part of the ovary that becomes the seeds. Fascinating, flowers are similar to people - the ovaries make the seeds - fruit, we make eggs and babies! So cool, I know I'm weird... but I love learning new things! 

Some other parts of the flowers are the petals, which are the colourful, often bright part of the flower. They attract the pollinators and are usually the reason why we buy and enjoy flowers! 

The sepal,  is the parts that look like tiny green leaves. They cover the outside of the flower bud to protect the flower before it opens or blooms! I don't know about you, but I found that information interesting, and well, there you have it the anatomy of a flower! You've gotta love Google!  I found the above information from this website - you  can CLICK HERE to view. 

Just in-case you were interested. I thought it was called the "Stamen", which it is, I knew it was the pollen producing part of the flower. But, now I know that the "Stamen" is made up of the "Anther" and the "Filament". So, I die cut 6-8 "Stamen's" for my flowers using Hello Honey Cardstock for the Orange flower and Crushed Curry for the Blushing Bride flower. 

I added some sponging and splattering - it's very faint, but it adds a bit of dimension to this otherwise, rather plain flower. The center is slightly different than the first one. Also I didn't offset the petals like the orange one, for a slightly different look. 

                           

I attached a piece of ribbon to the bottom of each flower, and adhered a punched out circle over top the hot glue (which is what I used to assemble my flowers). I added some velcro circles to the ends so the flowers can be removed, and re-used. The leaves are from the Autumn Accents Bigz die, which also gets a lot of use - as leaves and flowers go hand-in-hand!! I just noticed the other day that my tulips are starting to peek their heads through the soil, that makes me excited that spring is almost here! I hope you like these fun flowers, have a fantastic Friday :)

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Thanks for stopping by, happy stamping!
Beckie