Everlasting Flower Arrangement

I have entered this in the Paper Issues New Issue: Mum's The Word found here:

www.paperissues.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/new-issue-mums-wo...

This started as a vitamin jar and is now a pretty arrangement standing just under 11 inches high.

Scroll across to the right to learn how to make these dimensional flowers and for close-up pics of the arrangement.

I like using these amber jars because it makes it hard to see the stems inside the “vase”.

Here is the recipe:

1 - make the flowers - start with 8 petal punched flowers, I use the eyelet tool to punch a small hole (for a brad) in the middle of each flower, cut off one petal from each on, leaving 6 petals and a tab formed by trimming off the top of the petal (scroll to left to see tutorial photo), overlap the ends, apply some liquid adhesive (strong & fast drying) adhere together to make a slightly dimensional 6 petal flower (I do this using the rounded end of a small paint brush). Curl each petal for more dimension (I use the same small paint brush). Punch out some contrasting flowers for the centre of each flower, I use an eyelet tool to punch hole in the centre. Layer 2 of the large flowers, top with a contrast flower then secure together with a contrasting brad.

2 - make the leaves – made using 2 different punched leaves layered together, with darker on as the base.

3 - make the band / trim for around the "vase" – made using layers of different border punched strips and ribbon. You can use different different border designs to suit, for my one I put 2 layers of contrasting green leaves for the lower edge and butterflies for the top edge, with some contrasting ribbon along where they overlap and to make a bow. To make the butterflies stand out, I layered the punched edge over some contrasting cardstock, traced the edge with a light pencil and fussy cut. Apply some adhesive to the underside of the butterfly border and adhere to the fussy cut contrast layer. (One day I will try inlaying the tiny butterflies instead of overlaying the border strip.)

4 – make the butterflies – for this I just adhered two punched butterflies together, with a darker colour as the base, the top layer with the wings folded upwards for dimension, like the wings are fluttering. Add some bling along the centre for the body of the butterfly.

5 – assemble

- adhere the band to the jar with the join to the front – it gets covered with some ribbon and flowers. Decorate with more flowers, ribbon and butterflies.

- adhere flowers to green pipe cleaners – I like to make a loop behind the centre of each flower so there is more area to adhere to, keeping them firmly in place (if possible, loop around and bend the brads over the pipe cleaner too). Bend the other ends of the pipe cleaners and insert into the vase, trim & bend to ensure they sit neatly and securely, add adhesive if you want them to be permanent.

- adhere leaves to the stems of the flowers

- add aquarium pebbles to add weight & stability to the vase and hold the stems in place.

6 - enjoy your everlasting flower arrangement, it makes a pretty decoration and sweet gift.

I used lots of my favourite adhesives, Helmar 450 Quick Dry and Helmar Professional Acid Free Glue. I painted the Acid Free glue to secure the flowers, leaves and punched border layers together.

I used 450 Quick Dry to adhere the flowers & leaves to the "stems", the punched border trim to the "vase" and the ribbon to the border trim, the flowers to the border trim and the flower & a butterfly to the "vase" - it is the perfect adhesive, like liquid hot glue, it dries fast & clear but you have enough time to adjust all your layers in to perfect position before it sets.

OK - you know the adhesives I used, now you need to know about all the tools, which included lots of my favourite Fiskars punches – extra large & large Oopsie Daisy Squeeze Punches, medium & small Flower Lever Punches, Leaf Me Alone Squeeze Punch (base of layered leaves), Leaf It To Me Squeeze Punch (top of layered leaves), Ivy League Interchangeable Border Punch, Butterflies Border Punch, Flit On By Squeeze Punch and Eyelet Tool.

This project was inspired by and entered in the PaperCrafter's Corner Earth Day Challenge found here papercrafterscorner.com/blog/papercrafting-challenge-eart...

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