Wednesday 9 November 2016

When is a flower die not a flower die?

When you decide to turn it into a pine cone of course! Yep these lovely looking cones started life as paper flower die cuts.


These are super quick and easy to make as you will see from the mini tutorials below. That's right tutorials as in there's more than one!! I made a whole bunch of these in different sizes to keep in my stash.


Tutorial 1


The first cone has been made using the Flowers 2 Die from Polkadoodles

1. To make a basic cone as shown you will need to cut several of each flower in 300 gsm card.

2. Cut each flower into quarters.

3. Fold each petal in half.

4. Pinch the base of the petal and using tweezers, manipulate the top edge back and over (it will look something like a mouse's ear).

5. Repeat steps 2 - 4 until you have several petals in each size.

6. Take a cotton bud and using a hot glue gun, attach the largest petals to the top of the bud pushing them very slightly upwards.

7. Continue to add the petals to the cotton part of the bud until it is completely covered. Snip the stick of the bud off as close to the base of the cone as possible.

Tip if you want a smaller or larger cone then play around with your start point on the cotton bud and also the size of the petals. For example if you want a larger cone use more of the large petals.


Tutorial 2



The second cone has been made using the Flowers 1 Die from Polkadoodles. There are several ways to make these cones and your final finish will depend upon the way you cut the die cut and how tightly/loosely you wind it.

1. Cut one of each flower from 300 gsm card.

2. Carefully snip into each petal as shown.

Note: The first three pictures show how you can cut the flower to achieve various sized cones. Picture 1 is good for making the base of mid-sized cones or looser style cones. Picture 2 makes tiny, tightly curled cones which are also used as the centres of looser cones. Picture 3 (petals snipped into) is the most versatile as it can be used to make very loose base cones or small tight cones, but requires more manipulation to achieve the desired effect.

3. Take a pair of long nose craft tweezers and grip the widest part of the strip. Wrap around the tweezers and then release. Carefully unfurl and run glue around the base of the strip. Working quickly rewind the strip around the tweezers. If you are making a cone from picture one start at the narrowest part of the strip and apply glue to the centre circle.

4. Allow the petals to unfurl slightly, trying to ensure that they are offset from each other. Hold for a few moments until the glue has time to grab. Set aside to dry.

5. Once dry, use the tweezers to curl and fold the petals as desired.

6. The size of the cone will depend on how tightly or loosely you wind the strip. I created different sized cones by winding some strips very loosely and then stacking strips that had been wound tighter into the centre of the lose cone.

I hope you feel inspired by my tutorials. I'll be popping back later this week with a project made using the cones.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Claire x

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