Dahlia Fold Card Inspired by Jen Jordan

When I saw this card on Jen Jordan's blog Jordan Memories, I immediately printed it for c.a.s.e.-ing. Obviously it's taken me a bit to actually get to it, and I'm not completely happy with how it came out. More on that in a bit. But today's Splitcoaststampers' newsletter, The Weekly Inkling arrived in my inbox, and in it is a tutorial on how to do the Dahlia Fold! So, I decided to post my not quite as nice card for you to see. Thanks for the inspiration, Jen, even if my rendition isn't nearly as nice as yours! :o)
Why don't I especially like this card? Well, for one thing, the Dahlia is too big. When I first learned of this fold, all I found were sketchy directions on how to do the fold...didn't really see anything on the size of the circle to use. So, right off the bat, my circles were too big. Makes the flower too big! I used CTMH's Silhouette Creative Basics paper, because I never did buy the Silhouette Reflections pack. But I didn't like the Colonial white next to the stripes. So, I made some black paper fit on that part. (sort of a pain, but I like the black much better-it was after I did all this work that I realized the dahlia folds were too big. Too much work to just scrap it, so I made do). I thought I had the same heart stamps that Jen used, only to find out that I don't. So I used hearts from the Soulmates stamp set. The scripted one with the flourishes looks "blurry" to me, but it's how the stamp was created (not a favorite look of mine). So that was another strike against this card.

So, then I go to put the flower together (remember I never got any real directions on how to do this). When I tried this fold previously I discovered it's hard to get all those circles to stick together. I had been gluing those little flaps, which doesn't make it very stable. So this time I decided I needed a base, so I took a scrap of black paper and started gluing the folds to the paper making sure the sides of each fold were touching. Welllllllll....it didn't work out quite like I'd hoped and I had a big gap between the first and last folds (which is strategically covered by those two hearts). Another strike because it sort of feels off balance to me. I do like the black button, though!

Now, when you see the tutorial from Splitcoast, you will see I had the right idea to use a base, I just didn't use the correct type of base! I learned something new there and I am excited to try this technique again.

Jen's card is gorgeous and why I wanted to cardlift the design. Mine is so-so, but I do like the colors. It's a good idea gone wrong I think. Oh well. I think I'll have better luck next time.

Thanks for visiting and laughing along with me at my not so great card experiment...