Sunflower Power!

Bring sunny sunflowers into your scrapbook pages with this idea. On the surface, the page features a fabulous layered-paper sunflower, but spin the petals so they all line up and spot favorite pictures peeking through. Place the sunflower on a sky background for great contrast.

Materials:

plain paper
pencil
several sheets of yellow paper with streaks of gold undertones
black paper with dots of amber undertones
background paper - we chose a sky print
brass fastener (a.k.a. brass brad) and washer
permanent black marker

Steps:

1. Print the flower petal, center and leaf templates (figures A and B) onto plain paper. Cut out the templates.

2. On the back side of the green paper, trace around the leaf template (figure C), then cut along the traced line. Repeat if more leaves are desired. On the back side of the black paper, trace around the flower center template once, then cut along the traced line. Set leaves and center aside.

3. On the back side of yellow paper, trace around the flower petal template using a pencil. Repeat five more times on separate sheets of yellow paper. Cut out around the traced lines yielding six flower petal cutouts. Don't worry about cutting exactly...a little variation in the petals looks nice in the end.

4. Make six valley folds on each flower petal cutout (figures D and E), intersecting the folds in the center (figure F).

5. Use a brass fastener to punch a small hole in the center of each flower petal cutout where the folds intersect. Punch a small hole in the middle of the flower center, also.

6. Stack and align the flower petals together, positioning the flower center on top. Thread the brass fastener through the hole in the flower center (figure G ), then through the hole in each petal cutout until the head of the fastener is resting on the flower center (figures H and I).

7. Center the threaded flower layers on the background paper. Use the point of the brass fastener to pierce a hole through the background paper then thread it onto the bottom of the stack of cutouts (figure J).

8. Thread a brass washer onto the fastener then fold the fastener ends up, flush with the back of the background paper (figure K). Camouflage the brass fastener head by covering it with ink dots using a permanent black marker (figure L).

9. Trim photographs (figure M). With the flower petals aligned, adhere photographs and leaves between the petals onto the background paper (figure N).

10. Fan out the layers of petals to camouflage the images and complete the page (refer back to the first image). Embellish with paper or ribbon stems, journaling, etc.