Handmade Beaded Flowers

It's Workout Day!!

Today's workout from ScrapFit is a handmade flower challenge!

Supplies: PP: Bo Bunny, Creative Memories, Creating Keepsakes, Cardstock: DCWV, Ribbon:Wrights, Corner Punch: EK Success, Beads & Wire: Darice, Cricut Cartridge: Once Upon A Princess, Other: Crystal Effects: Ranger

I was a little nervous when I found out that today's challenge was handmade flowers.

Being the huge Prima fan that I am --

 

(You can see the rest of my studio HERE)

I don't make too many of my own flowers.

So I spent some time brain-storming and decided that this was a good opportunity to incorporate one of my other crafty loves-- jewelry making & beading.

To make these fun flowers, you will need:

Seed beads & a couple of larger beads for flower centers (I also incorporated a couple of matching small beads), wire cutters & needle-nose pliers, bendable wire (I used 28 gauge) and a textured surface to keep your beads from rolling away.

Start by cutting an 8"-14" piece of wire- depending on how big you want your flower to be.

My largest flower uses a 12" piece, the smaller ones are 8" & 9".

String your larger "center" bead on first, the start filling your 2 sides with seed beads.

Keep in mind that your Center bead will not actually be in the center of your wire- it needs to be off to 1 side so that it will remain in the center when you start winding your flowers into circles.

When your beads are all on your wire, use the pliers to twist the 2 ends together.  

You're going to think "I don't need pliers- I can just twist them"

And you can.

And they'll stay twisted 

for about 4 seconds.

So unless you have a fondness for vacuuming or a small child that you want to keep occupied with "helping Mommy/Grannie/Auntie pick up all the little beads off the floor" for a really long time-- 

TRUST ME

use the pliers.

Your finished string should look like this

Now you're going to hold on to that larger center bead and start rolling the 2 sides around it on a flat surface.

Keep winding until it's all rolled up.

Now it's decision time.

You need to figure out how you want to adhere the coils to your layout.  

You can attach them directly, using large glue dots.

Or, you can do as I did & attach them to a punched circle to cardstock first.

(I used a 1 1/4" circle punch)

These circles can be trimmed to fit your flowers, but I kind of like the look of the cardstock peeking out of the edges, so I left them.

The smaller 2 flowers were adhered to the cardstock using large glue dots.

For the larger flower, I used a large glue dot in the center, then used GemTac (a stinky, but super strong liquid adhesive used in jewelry making) to stick down the outside edges.

Now, you need to decide on placement on your layout so that you can stick down the stems of your flowers (I used grosgrain ribbon)

then glue your flower topper on.

The last step is to hid the little spots of metal where you twisted together the ends of the wires.

I experimented with this quite a bit & found that the easiest & most effect way to hid them is to tie a little knot of ribbon & glue it at the base of your flower.

Totally hides that spot & gives you the look of leaves for your flowers!

Making my own flowers is so far outside my comfort zone, but I really enjoyed the challenge & was surprised at how much fun I had with them.

If you want to see some other hand-made flowers, be sure to check out ScrapFit Workout #41

to see the great job that the other Fit Girls did.

Make sure to link up your handmade flowers for a chance to win a great prize package from Sweet Peach Crop Shop.

And if you're in the DFW area- don't forget that registration for GASC Arlington is open & classes fill fast!