Paper Roses Have No Thorns

My mom's birthday was last week. I always like to decorate her gifts so she knows how special she is to me. Plus she then gets some of my art! 

I made these roses out of plain copy paper soaked liberally with spray inks - I haven't figured out these spray inks yet. The edges of the roses have a little glitter on them. The color from the spray inks lifted when I put the wet glitter glue on, which resulted in the glitter colors matching exactly to the rose colors. Happy accident!

I added some loose fake leaves I had around, twisted them together in the back, and made curly-Qs with the stem ends. A little sparkly, sheer ribbon added a nice touch and allowed for tying the decoration to the gift.

To be honest, I was not expecting the reaction I got from my mother and twin sister about these roses. They LOVED them! The two of them immediately imagined many uses for them - from hair clips to wreaths. How lucky am I that I have the two best cheerleaders ever in my family for my work?!

(We were all gathered for The December Birthday Bash where we celebrate mom's birthday as well as my and my twin sister's birthday at one party. December just gets too busy with that many birthdays to party for.)

Mom has asked me to sew a little felt piece and a pin back to her gift decoration so she can wear it as a brooch!

Then my nieces (5 & 8) wanted some! They insisted on coloring their own if I would cut the roses and roll them. How could I say no - even though it was about 10 minutes to bedtime? 

The roses below were made by my youngest niece. The yellow yarn was her idea as she wanted to wear the roses in her hair. A heavier cardstock was used for these roses and you can see they end up a bit larger and fuller. 

The roses are rather fun to make, and I imagine I will be developing a line of art to use them on. Maybe even some hair accessories and what-not. I'm intrigued by where these will take me!

- Vickie