Friday 10 October 2014

Making flowers....

Good morning friends
While I was looking for something the other day I came across a die I had "forgotten" about, the sizzix 3D flower die. Don't you love it when that happens?
So, before I "lost" it in my studio again I thought I'd make some........

I know that most of you will know this but I thought I'd share the process anyway.

 I decided to use some "waste" paper for my flowers. By this I mean paper that I use when spraying inks so the paper is all random.
 The die cuts two different sizes so I just cut as many as I could out of two sheets of paper. (Paper works better than card in my opinion by the way)

Before you start to assemble your flowers, get some glue dots and lay them ready on your desk.

 Beginning from the outside of the spiral you begin to coil the paper around a cocktail stick or similar (I'm using a crochet hook) Try to keep the coil as tight as you can.
So, as you can see, by the end you have something that looks like this.

Take it off the skewer and let it "relax" for a moment. You will see it opens up naturally. Take the flower and stick it onto a glue dot. This will only secure the base.

To secure all the other pieces you need to add a dot of a clear drying glue as seen, press the flower into it and set aside to dry thoroughly.
Then you just repeat for all of them and leave to dry.
The end result is a lovely diverse collection of flowers, complete with a glue dot ready for you to use on your projects.
This is a great die to use up scraps of patterned papers. You could also just die cut a whole pile of scraps and leave them ready to assemble into flowers when you need them too.

I hope you have a great crafty weekend ahead.....


4 comments:

Shoshi said...

Lovely, Neil. Great subtle colours. I cut flower pieces from watercolour paper and use them as masks when spraying Dylusions backgrounds, turning them over and moving them in between sprays so the end up coloured on both sides, and create fabby backgrounds in the process! I love making flowers. I made some felt ones on Wednesday night at the class - very pleased with the result.

Shoshi

Belinda Basson said...

These are so nice to have in your stash all ready to go on a project. I sit and make these sort of things when my mojo is taking a stroll...that way I get to be busy but am prepping for something in advance! (who knows what that something is...but I will be ready for it when the mojo re-appears!)

Sue Marrazzo Fine Art said...

What a clever and Fun idea!
You have such cool IDEAS...Thanks!

Mrs A. said...

I have never had much luck with spiral flowers but that looks a good idea to use a glue dot to fasten the base with. Thanks for the info. Mrs A.