I have mentioned before about how to make use of artificial flowers, by breaking them apart and preparing them for scrapbooking layouts and other paper crafting projects, such as cards.

Click here to watch the video about that

Well I wanted to just give you some tips regarding some of the flowers you may find in the shop and think are not suitable, and by that I mean you think they are too big. This is a card I have made using a large (5 1/2" diameter) flower which I worked out actually cost me just under 8p !

Firstly, when you are browsing the isles of flowers (and I would suggest that you scour the "thrift shops" and "£ shops" for these, as in places such as craft centres they are really expensive) go for the plain colours.

I always steer towards the whites and creams as these can easily be coloured with inks, etc, to match them in with your scrapbooking layout or card, but I also buy other colours, such as black, grey, some pinks, blues, colours that I think will go with my existing stash.

Also when you are looking at the bloom heads themselves, see how many of the petals (rings of petals) will actually be usable. In the picture below I am holding what was a peony type of flower. The innermost layer was not really usable (odd shape!), but about 4 out of the 8 layers were of reasonable size and shape.

However, the outer 3 layers were too large and floppy to be used successfully on a paper crafting project, but rather than throw these away, I can reassemble them into something that looks like a flower again and use it as an embellishment on a gift, to make the wrapping extra special. So don't think you have to throw away the unsuitable ones.

The card at the top of this page was made using one of the layers of petals from the bloom below, which cost just £1. The blooms break apart into 14 identical layers of petals.

Below is a deep pink version, I also bought a black, cream and grey version. And I bought a couple of white ones too as I plan to give them out as gifts to my fellow scrapbookers/crafters, something you may like to consider if the blooms are really cheap and easily fit your budget, you can afford to be generous (as long as they are nice too of course!).

These "outsized" flowers can be folded (or cut) into halves or quarters to add embellishment and be layered with other items to create a bold accent to your projects.

With most blooms, you will find some sort of foliage, not all of it is suitable for our crafting projects, but certainly it's worth giving the accompanying foliage a good look too when you are shopping, as some of it can offer striking, effective and sometimes unusual embellishment to our pages.

If it's Spring in your part of the World right now, keep your eyes peeled for cheap artificial flowers in the shops, it can be fun to find such crafting goodies, not to mention the satisfying act of pulling the blooms apart! LOL...

I actually put them all on the dining room table and shared the disassembly experience with my 5 year old daughter ... ahhh !!