Red, White and Blue!

The only cartridge I used was Mother's Day Bouquet.  I used a smooth Styrofoam ball and inserted and hot glued in a dowel rod.  Depending on the colors that I use for the flowers I sometimes also paint the Styrofoam ball to match, in this case I just left it white.  For each assembled flower I used a pin, a button, a 1" cut flower, a 1.5" cut flower and a 2.25" cut flower per assembled flower to get them to look stacked the way they are.  (These sizes were also perfect to cut 16 of each size out of a piece of 12" x 12" card stock.)  I simply folded and curled the petals to give them a  3D look from flat paper.  Before sticking the pin into the Styrofoam ball, I did add a bit of glue to the pin so that it would stay in the Styrofoam better.  I just used regular glue, nothing special.  After I had the entire Styrofoam ball covered I stuck it in a piece of floral foam stuck in the bottom of the pail and hot glued it in.  I then covered the rest of the foam in the pail with little stones just to finish off the look.  I tied a ribbon around the dowel rod, just for a little decoration. 

Supplies:

*2 Sheets each red white and blue 12" x 12" card stock (this will yield extra flowers for a future project)

*1 1/4" Dowel rod, cut to about 15" long 

*~ 50 Total red, white and blue buttons 

*~50 White pearl head pins (You can use whatever color you want)

*1 6" smooth Styrofoam ball (I purchased mine at Jo Ann with a 50% off coupon)

*1 pail (I've purchased at Michael's for a larger size or Target's $1 spot for smaller ones.)

*A small block of floral foam

*Decorative stones for pail

*~12" of ribbon for bow (I used red 1/2" ribbon)

*Optional paint and paintbrush to paint Styrofoam ball

*Cricut Mother's Day Bouquet Cartridge

*Cricut Expression with mats and blades