Flowers!

Way back on March 10th - before the world changed beyond recognition - I unearthed my flower forming kit that I bought from Crafter's Companion in September last year. The plan was to make some flowers for some cards that I am planning on making later in the year. I did make a start - and also unearthed some Foamiran which I added to the mix - and completed a couple of flowers, but then they ended up on the back burner as other things took over. 

It was over a week ago, when I finally sat down to finish them, and it was an interesting experience, as I developed my own technique and found what I was happy with.

The first thing I did - as lots of the videos that I watched suggest - was to cut my flowers and ink them.  I used a variety of dies including Sheena Douglass Rosy Outlook Perfect Partners, Crafter's Companion Essentials - Flowers for all Occasions Sets 1-4, and Sara Signature Shabby Chic Classic Lily. As the picture shows, I inked them using Distress Oxide. This turned out to be a complete waste of time. It didn't show up, and came off on the iron when heating. I think it's best reserved for white foam.

I decided to start with the Rosy Outlook flowers cut from red Foamiran and opted for the cup style flower.  This is where you heat the foam, it curls up and you then use the foam and ball tool to shape it into a cup - the shape it naturally seems to want to make. I think that this die might have been a bit big for this, but this was my first attempt and I was learning as I was going.

I found by trial and error that it was easier to make the holes before you heated the foam - but again, this was my first time, and I was following things from the videos.

The first time I used the wire around the stamens, I twisted it on so it stayed attached to the flower, but as I progressed, I found that just looping it worked, and the wire could be re-used. I ended up having two pieces on the go allowing me to get on with things while hot glue was cooling.

 

I found that, for me, after pulling the stamens through the first layer of the flower, it worked best to put a blob of hot glue onto the back of the flower. This allowed me to ensure that the stamen was fixed before attaching the next layer. I found, at the start, that I was pulling them through. These are the first three flowers I made - the ones that I made lots of mistakes on, and that I wasn't overly happy with. Although, on reflection, they look fine.

So, three weeks later, and having watched more videos, I wanted to try other things. So, using the same die cuts and foam as before, this time I heated the flower, then folded each petal in half and rolled it in my fingers. This gave a more scrunched look, and I liked the result. 

This is the point at which I worked out to just loop the wire around the stamens, and that adding glue at the back of the first layer helped to stop it slipping through. I also put hot glue on the back of the last layer and allowed it to set before removing the wire.

   

I have been using a really old travel iron for heating my flower, and have found that holding it on with the ball tool works best for me. With these purple flowers, I did the opposite to making a cup by turning it over before using the foam and ball too to shape it.

  

  

For these yellow and orange flowers, I used a combination of cup shaped and the other shape (no idea if it has a name). I did the same for the cream and orange ones.

And finally, I tackled the lily. I was wishing I hadn't used this die as I was not sure how it would go together. But, I pushed on and decided to try the tool that comes with the Crafter's Companion kit to ruffle up the ends of the petals. I heated the flower, folded it so the petals were on top of each other, then folded them in half. I then ran the finger tool over the ends of the petals, on top of the board.

The resulting flowers are better than I first anticipated, but I really don't like this colour of the Foamiran.

So, lots of lessons learnt. It's a long process, but it is worth it in the end.

Take care, stay safe.

Cxxx