I was sent a pack of leather offcuts from Baker Ross (you can find them here) - they come in a mix of colours, and I thought I could make scrapbook embellishments or cards and die cut them. I had a little look around the web and found a lovely tutorial by Martha Stewart to make leather flowers (you can find it here). I used the same process of soaking and drying the leather (I used pencils in a piece of cardboard) but I used my tattered flower die from Tim Holtz - I cut 2 large flowers, 3 middle sized flowers and 1 small flower.
After you've die cut the flowers you soak them in water, some of the die will come out and leave them for a few minutes - you can always re-soak if they are not malleable enough. Then squeeze and twist them, trying to concertina the petals a little bit so the leather looks more like a petal. You then dry them upside down on pencils - so the leather side is on the top of the pencil - I did think about elastic banding them on the top to get a tighter flower shape. Leave them overnight to dry and then layer them up into a flower. I used glue to stick the layers together, but sewing would be a more full proof way of holding them together, and added a broach pin
Great idea, the petals came out really well, I never would've thought of those leather scraps being that flexible... well done.
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