Frugal Flourish Bling:)

Don't you just LOVE all that bling out there in the market place?  The wispy goodness is just too hard to resist, isn't it?  But alas...what's a frugal scrapper to do?  Even though there are some AMAZINGLY affordable companies out there, I still find myself asking...how can I do that myself?

Over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog, they have links to some great tutorials on how to make your own flourish/swirl bling for your projects, so be sure to check it out.  Here is a direct link to the post.

I have come up with one more way to make FRUGAL flourish templates for your crafting projects.  Now, I know this isn't rocket science, lol, and you may have seen this technique before, but since I have not seen it anywhere, I AM considering this a "Frugal Scrapper Extraordinaire" idea.

Using one of my flourish stamps, I stamped with black ink onto a piece of chipboard.  Then I took my trusty crop-a-dile and using the smaller of the two hole punches, I punched my way around the flourish, spacing the holes every 1/4" or so.  I realized that the "reach" on my crop-a-dile was a minor challenge when I got to the middle of the flourish, so I decided to loosely cut around the stamped image so I could more easily punch some of the holes.



Then I got out my trusty stickles and dropped just a smidge into each hole....and...VOILA...my very own FRUGAL flourish bling:)  Now you all know that the biggest complaint about stickles is how long they take to dry...so if you don't mind a more subdued blingy appearance, you can use the tip of a toothpick and dip it into some stickles you squirted out on your craft mat to drop into each hole in your template.

Whenever I use a toothpick to apply stickles, besides having more control over where it lands, it dries much quicker because there is much lighter coverage.  This is especially helpful with small projects like cards or tags where you don't want the bling to be too overwhelming anyway.

I did find that it was much easier to work from the back of my template because the stamped side was a bit distracting.  You can also consider the fact that now you can determine the direction that your flourish goes based on which side of the template you use.

I'm sure you could also use this template to place glue if you still prefer to add crystals or other bling to your project.

Once finished, just clean off any extra stickles (or glue) stuck to the template with a dry paper towel.



Of course, for those of you who are daring enough, you can also just "draw" your flourishes freehand with no template at all:)  I've tried it and it works fine...you can always practice on scrap paper first:)