Not only do I love doll making but I also love creating floral crafts so while taking the "Leonardo Loves Zia" online class in the first session at Artful Gathering I was thrilled to see that we were going to learn how to manipulate paper to not only create two totally handmade sculptured jesters but also how to create paper flowers in embellished and collage vases to add to the romantic story of our jesters.
So, for the last week I have been doing just that and have to tell you that I have been having a lot of fun. Of course, I didn't quite follow the course and instructions. I never seem to but, I did utilize what I learned in this class as well as other techniques I've learned or picked up over the years.
Shown in the picture above is the 2nd group of jesters I made with their matching flowers and collage & paper-clay embellished vases.
Shown in the picture above is the 1st group of jesters I made with their matching flower and collage & paper-clay embellished vases.
It should come as no surprise that my paper flowers and vases were all sponge painted as I just love to paint that way and most of my creations end up with some sort of sponge painted item...lol
It should also come as no surprise that most of my flowers and vases were blue or a complimentary color to blue. Could that be because blue is my favorite color. Nah........
The vases that I added paper collage and paper-clay embellishments to were clear colored, small vases.
I didn't collage or embellish the vase, shown in the picture above, as it was much larger and the colors perfectly suited what I had in mind for this vase so I left it as is. It worked perfectly for the paper flowers I made for it. and looks great on my kitchen table. Of course, my sister keeps giving me hinks that this would make a perfect Christmas gift.... hint, hint....lol
When I saw the 7" tall, skinny, clear glass base above I knew it would be perfect for something I wanted to do. Our beloved Kim was an artist and loved crafting as well. I know she would have loved taking all the different classes at Artful Gathering and would especially enjoy the "Leonardo Loves Zia" class so I decided to make something for her.
I thought a purple embellished vase with a single purple lily would be perfect and decided to collage and paint the vase above purple and to paper-clay the bottom and paint it with complementary purple colors. Since this class didn't teach you how to make paper lily's I figured out how to do it myself and fashioned a paper lily together. Then I sponge painted it purple colors that would compliment the vase.
I made the stamens out of brown paper and used green floral wire for the filament. I made the stem out of green scrapbook paper and made sure it was thick enough to stand in the vase alone. I was pleased with the way it turned out and know Kim would have loved it as well.
I always like to experiment and try different things with some of the techniques I've learned over the years either from classes I've taken or things I've taught myself and thought it would be fun to combine my love of floral crafts with some of these techniques.
So, I went through several books with pictures of flowers to find some of my favorite flowers, like Dahlia's, Sunflowers, Black-Eyed Susan's, Shasta Daisies and Cone-flowers to see if I might be able to figure out how to create paper flowers for some of them.
I also like creating holiday and seasonal crafts for the techniques I'm working with and decided large poinsettia's like the one shown in the picture above would be pretty during the holidays. I wasn't sure how to fashion the little stamens and filament in the middle as I needed to support my large poinsettia petals somehow so I decided to just add bronze beads to the large round center I had fashioned out of paper-clay. It's works and looks somewhat like a poinsettia so I was happy. I need to make another one or, maybe two, to fit it properly within this vase so, hopefully, I can do that in the next few weeks.
I'm still undecided as to whether or not to collage this vase. The bubbles in the bottom and curved glass columns might be problematical for collage so I probably will leave it just as it is. Plus, it's a festive green in color and is pretty all by itself.
I had a lot of fun collaging and embellishing the little glass vases. Way too much fun! For me that can be very dangerous as I never do anything in moderation so I could easily get carried away and make way too many....lol
I hope you like my paper flowers and collage & embellished vases. For sure I do....
No comments:
Post a Comment