Tonic Floral Delights Die Sets

These are just amazing!

These gorgeous new dies from Tonic help you to effortlessly create beautiful realistic flowers like this intricate one made from Vellum:

So, let me show you how they work.

The one I'm using is the Oriental Lily set here:

What you get in the box is two dies, a petal and leaf die and a stamen and base die. You also get a couple of sample sheets of the matching paper pad.
You can buy these paper pads separately, but you can of course use the die on any cardstock or paper you might already have too. I must admit, I'd recommend getting the paper pads, purely because they're just so lovely!

The corners of this paper pad have little black dots which you use to line up the paper with the holes in the die itself:

Then just run this through your bigshot like you would a nesting die:

Now, this next bit's brilliant, although you can leave this stage off if you don't want to emboss the petals. But I love the effect it gives. You'll need the silicone rubber mat for the bigshot (sold separately, and we have it in stock) or if you're using a grand calibur, it's the tan embossing mat. They're both essentially the same thing.

Here is the stamen and base die, but it's the same for both. You need to pull off the waste paper leaving the die cuts themselves in the die:

Then you'll need to open the top tab on your multipurpose platform. Lay on a single clear cutting mat, then the die, cutting side up, then the silicone rubber followed by the Impressions Pad.

I have little stickers on my impressions pad to remind me which order to put the stack in!

You'll get a little mark on your silicone rubber like this. But amazingly, the die won't cut into the rubber! I must admit, I was pretty worried the first time I did it, but even that little mark itself actually rubs out.

And here is an embossed petal. How pretty is that?

So, here is everything cut and embossed:

So, on to the shaping!

Now this is an excellent tip from Jodie Johnson, the lady who designs these dies. Take your pokey tool and use that to curl the petals of your flowers:

Now, pop a blob of glue onto the base, and use the base itself to line up the 5 petals and stick them on:

Next up is the stamen. Using the embossing tool and foam mat you'd use for DIY Card Candy, emboss the back of the stamen to give it dimension:

Glue the stamen in place using a stick it gluepen. With the flower the right way up, press hard in the centre. This chunky embossing tool from Payper Box is ideal for this, since you need a nice large tool to get the right effect.

To finish off your flower, curl the leaf like you did with the petals. I like to curl the leaf in two directions, like this:

Glue the leaf onto the back of your flower, and voila! A beautiful, realistic Lily:

Isn't that just stunning! I got very carried away with this die set, and here are some of the lovely things you can make with it:

And here are a few made by Jodie herself:

That last one there is one of the other sets, which will be arriving soon.

Aren't they all just beautiful!