Making a rosette

There are probably easier ways to make a rosette but this is how I make them.

Apologies for the horrid papers used but daughters bf is staying with us for a few weeks until his new flat is ready and as a consequence I'm having to share my playroom and all of my decent stash hidden away. (Took me over 8 hours to tidy it up yesterday, oops) Like most of the cardweight capable punches my SU border punches don't like thin nasty paper and I would have had a better result if I'd used something thicker than cheap loo paper ;o)

Punch the entire length of 12*12 or a4 card stock and trim to the required width to create a band. In this case I used the SU lacey border and cut the black to 3" wide and the pink & white ( the photo shows the white back) to 2". Using a score board score evenly all the way across at about 1cm apart, for mine I scored at the beginning & middle of the pattern. It's worth pointing out that the entire rosette will be more than twice as large as the width you've chosen and the wider the band the more card you'll need. A 1" wide strip will only require 1 length of 12*12 whereas mine took 2 lengths of 12*12 for each layer.

Once scored fold to create concertinas taking care to fold in the same places of patterns for all the pieces.

Punch or nestie a circle of card, doesnt matter what card you use as it's going to be covered. I used a 1 3/8" SU punch which I then folded in half and marked across the centre with a pencil. If you are making a small rosette you don't need to mark the centre, this is just to help so that I get an even splay of folds. Use a very strong and quick drying glue over the edges of one half. I've gone overboard with my trusty tombow glue, not because I need to but so you can see the glue on the photo.

Start with one of the concertinas and tease into place around half of the circle. This is the time you'll wish you had a dozen fingers on each hand ;o) Hold it firmly in place until the glue dries, it should only be a minute or so if you've used a good strong glue and didnt apply too much. Mine took about 3 minutes! If you're making a small rosette and only need one strip you just need to bend the end to meet the start.

Repeat the glue on the bottom half and add the 2nd concertina, hold in place until dry again. If when you let go it starts to rise in the middle don't panic, this is quite normal and will be sorted out in a while.

If adding a second layer of folds lightly apply some glue to the top of the folds on the base layer. Don't go up to the centre or the edges, a band around the middle is sufficient. Gently ease the folds into place and push down. It can be a bit fiddly if you try to get the centre edges lined up so if need be trim away the centre edge a bit before putting into place. It doesnt matter if the top layers arent the same width because we're going to cover it. Once finished if necessary glue the ends together to neaten.

This is me teasing the folds into place, for once I've managed to hide how ink stained my fat lil puds are lol.

If you want to add a ribbon dangler glue it into place now.

Next step is to cover the centre, I'm looking for a more traditional rosette look so I've used the 2nd largest large circle nestie (black) and the next size down (pink) which has been embossed with a bug folder but any size would have worked provided it was large enough to cover the edge where the 2 layers of rosette meet. Add a strong glue to the back and position on the rosette and press down quite firmly.






As you can see from the pic it's still trying to lift up in the middle. You can hold it down for a while if you want, I prefer to just plonk one of my heavier punches on top and clear off to make a cuppa lol. By the time the tea is made and drunk the rosette will be perfectly flat and ready to decorate or use as an embellie.














Not sure what I'm going to do with this whopper as it measures nearly 6" across but the lil one I made (on the first picture and made from a single inch strip) will no doubt end up on a card at some point.