Pinch Me Please, Peony!

Hello friends!  Dana here with some updates and a tutorial for you using the JUST released Nestabling!  There are so many reasons today for me to say "pinch me, please!" because the excitement here at Want2Scrap is high friends, cloud 9 high!  The team down at CHA is just bursting with good news today and I am happy to share some of it with you.   But first, just a huge THANK YOU for all of the great feedback over the new product line.  We hear you and we are so grateful to have you cheering us on!  Something else you will love is that we had 10 peeks here on the blog leading up to CHA, but guess what?  There are a bunch more coming!  Oh yes, that's right, we have Nestabling for the brand new Nestabilities releases too!  As soon as possible, we will be showing you the FULL Nestabling release here on the blog and friends, you are gonna fall in love all over again! I have been given the shipping date of these brand new items and it will be April 1st, no foolin! Also, we will be taking pre-orders starting in a week or two as soon as the dynamic duo of Michele and Michele return from CHA.  Stay tuned to the blog or our Facebook page for when we open up the ordering.

The Nestabling set I am using today matches up with the Nestabilities Peony.  Again I say "pinch me, please!".  Does it get any friendlier than the way the Nestabling and this Nestabilities play together?!?  I think not!  I received a set of black bling Peony and it is so striking. I love how the bling gently scales down in diameter as you move down in Nestability die cut size.  I used my one set of Peony Nestabling on the card you see above and it is currently on display at CHA so I won't be able to show you application of the bling throughout this tutorial (doh!) BUT I will walk you through all the steps to get this gorgeous Peony to come to life.  Ready to see how I did it?  OK, let's go.... 

This flower uses 4 pieces of the Peony set.  Prior to adhering your Nestabling to the edges, perform any inking (as I did above), stamping, texture plating, etc.  Once complete, adhere your Nestabling to the edges of your flattened out peony cuts.   OK, ok I can hear you say it..."but Dana, how can I adhere the Nestabling NOW when there is so much manipulating to be done to the flower pieces?"  And to that I say, adhere with confidence, the adhesive on the Want2Scrap bling is that good.  Truly, adhere it now.

 OK, from now on, please remember that the Nestabling is already adhered to the peony edges.  :)  Next step is to find the natral centers of the peony pieces by folding the pieces in half once, twice, three times like above.

 Once you find the natural centers, PINCH the center points and start gathering the the peony edges towards each other.  The more scrunching the more texture.  NOW is when you are REALLY glad Nestabling has such great adhesive qualities to it!

 PINCH and gather will result on four layers that look like this!  They remind me of swirly dancing skirts!

 Right now, the pinches bottoms of the peony pieces are pretty pronounced, it's ok, that is the way you want them.

 Time to start building.  I used the smallest piece and the next size up to start.  I like using Fabri-tac glue since it works much like a hot glue gun without the HOT.  Make a well of glue in the larger of the two pieces and then set by nesting the smallest piece into the glue.

 Cute huh?  There is the gorgeous center of the peony, and in it's own right, could be a finished product at this stage.

 Next, take again the next size up peony piece, fill the well with glue and nestle the peony center we made above into the glue.

 Again, gorgeous! You really can't go wrong with this flower.  It looks great large or small.  Going for maximum effect, I am going to move on to the final and largest peony piece.

 Now if I open up the largest peony piece and set the triple layered piece we made above into it, it would have the large and open look as above.  Reminds me of a tiny wrapped wedding bouquet!

 For my finished flower, I decided to make the more compact version so this time, I applied glue to the bottom of my triple layered piece and then nestled down into my largest peony piece, adjusting height and paper gathers as I went.

 Finished!  Looks sooo realistic and gorgeous here but don't forget, this is what it looks like with it's new BFF named Nestabling!

A couple more notes on these peonies as I have constructed them....

 The finished piece looks like the above.  Thanks to all that PINCHING, we end up with a fairly pronounced bottom.  This is not a bad thing, in fact it would make a perfect paper flower to thread a floral wire through and then stem wrap the bottom and the wire with ribbon or floral tape.  But, if you are using it for a card.....

 you are gonna have to give it a little snip.  Easy peasy and ready to adhere to your card.

I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial and will make some peonies for your own projects.  Keep checking our blog for product updates, challenges and the announcement of our five winners of the full release Nestabling line!!  Good luck to all of the entrants so far and thanks again for all of your enthusiasm!