Daisy, Daisy

Well morning all!

Here I am AGAIN! Two days in a row! I am actually loving this now - those of you who have been with me from the beginning may remember that I said once (or twice) that I am not good at keeping up with things. Well I am a new woman! So many ideas and I am delighted with the responses that I have been getting.

There are a lot of blogs floating around of varying quality and style and whenI started this one I made a decision to not post so many projects...there are a fair few of those already. No, my decision was to post techniques so that crafters could learn and add to their already considerable know how. That way, people can take what I have to give and use it anywhere at all.

Flowers are the thing of the moment and today I thought that I would show you how to make a classic English Daisy from paper. Here is the sort of thing that I mean......

Readers in the UK will be very familiar with these sweet little lawn dwellers and they make a cottage a cottage. Readers elsewhere though may not be so familiar with them. Their botanical name is Bellis Perennis and they are really good fillers for cards and scrapbooking and all sorts of other  paper projects.

I am not going to go into detail about the leaves, they are just cut from green paper and inked with Ranger Distress in in Mowed Lawn. Look out for a 2013 post about colouring leaves to go with the ribbon roses and you will see what I mean. Choose a longer, lobular leaf to make the flowers look realistic.

Before we begin, you will see a mystery ingredient in the needs list. It is a very fine flocking powder as used by nail artists. I got it easily and cheaply on eBay after experimenting a lot looking for the perfect and most realistic flower centre for daisies! Who knew!

Right. Firstly you will need a 'daisy kit'.

This consists of the things that you see in the photo; Ranger Distress ink in Victorian Velvet, an ink applicator tool, a daisy punch in at least one size and some bright yellow flocking powder. Any white paper of half decent quality will make the flowers themselves. A hot glue gun and the ubiquitous ball tool completes the needs list. Begin by cutting out daisies. As a rule (and you know how I feel about layering) you will need three layers of petals per flower.

Now ink up the applicator tool and softly ink the edges of the petals only.

Even better is a detailed close up...

I think that you can see the idea from this. Now take the hot glue gun and glue three layers together. And alternate the petals as you do so that they look fuller.

In the last two posts, I recommended a ball tool (a bit like an overgrown stylus) and it is used again here for shaping the daisies.

What we have to do now is to make the centres. Open the flock jar in preparation. you do have to work quite quickly once the glue goes on. Basically, what you are trying to achieve is a dab of hot glue and then dip it straight into the flocking powder while it is still wet. The powder will quite magically round off the glue and the centre looks really realistic!
Bend the daisy back over the ball tool like this...

This ensures that you can dip with precision! Now place a small dob of hot glue right into the centre and then go straight into the flocking powder which obligingly comes in a wide mouthed container.
When the daisy centre is dry, ruffle the petals up to give them dimension.

I have another side shot to show you more. See how good those centres look!

Regular readers will know that I don't go in much for flat flowers. I like the dimensional, 'meatier' kind. You can curl the petals around a needle if you want curl or else just use them as they are there. Let's have a look at the finished article again.

This is from a mixed media canvas and the daisies really made the project. Make  heaps and store them for projects, they are like money in the bank and they are also one of the flowers that we can put onto a man's project. They are not aggressively feminine and made in a few sizes, they are super useful.

Well thanks for stopping by and have fun making daisies! See you next time....
Debs
xxx