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Showing posts with label Paper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paper. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Wire Flowers - An Experiment

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my discovery of the coolness of fabric yo-yo’s. After looking around for some new ideas, I found out the company who makes the plastic template I use also makes a myriad of other products for cool looking fabric things such as butterflies, flowers and hearts. They even have a four-leafed clover (apropos, considering that is the name of the company who manufactures the products: Clover).
Anyway, this got me thinking. I had so much fun making my Kusudama Flowers…how can I incorporate the paper flowers with the fabric flowers? I decided to try and make some fabric flower petals and insert some floral wire into the ends giving them a molded look.
I wanted to start by cutting two tear drop shaped pieces of fabric for the petal. Then, I would sew them right sides together with a 1/8” seam allowance leaving the bottom unsewn for turning. After that, I’d take some floral wire and fit it around the inside edges of the petal so it would keep its shape and structure. Once I had 5 of these petals, I would attach them by winding the excess wire in the center, like a “stem”. To complete the look, I’d wrap the wire in floral tape and glue a button or pearl in the center of the flower.
I haven’t actually tried this yet, but I think it will work.
By the way, we’ve had more snow in the last week than we received in the entire month of February. How ridiculous is that? We started spring cleaning last weekend during the middle of one of the snowstorms. It just didn’t feel right.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Kusudama Flowers

Kusudama Flowers
 I've always loved the art of origami. My step daughter and I decided to make some paper flowers for her mom last Mother's Day so she could keep them forever instead of having them die. It would also be something pretty to show off instead of a card that would eventually end up in a drawer.
After googling high and low, we found
this site. Emilee and I worked on the Kusudama Flowers. We made a bouquet for her mom and a Kusudama Ball for her grandma.

These are so fun to make! Our fingers were pretty sore after making 36 flowers, but the end result was definitely worth it. We used a pop can as the vase and prettied it up with some transparent paper.