skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Today I'm sharing the last tutorial from my Spring Mantle: the little Flower Balls. Yes, that means they are finally all completed!!
These were the result of a pin (this one), curtesy of the blog The Idea Room. When I finally found a cheap flower punch at Wal-Mart (4$!!), this was the first thing I wanted to make. I totally thought they'd be super easy and fun to make. THOUGHT being the operative word.
I set out to do not 3, not 4, but 5 of them! Since, you know, I had 5 different colored cardstock on hand that would go well for spring.
Tools and materials:
~ 2 1/2 inch styrofoam balls, Dollarama, 1$ for 8
~ cardstock, Dollarama, 2$ for 50 sheets
~ Flower Punch, Wal-Mart, 4$
~ hot glue gun and glue sticks, or pins
~ band-aids (for when you get blisters and want to keep going just to finish the last ball haha!!)
Time: 1h30 to 2 hours PER BALL
It's extremely time consuming. And it hurts (if you didn't get the band-aid joke). One ball takes almost an entire 8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet's worth of flower cutouts. That's a LOT of flowers. Sit in front of the TV, take your time, plan that this will take a week to do (or several). Or- hey- just make a couple!!
Alright, now that the warnings are over. Let me show you how I made them. They are still fun to make.
In the original tutorial she used straight pins instead of gluing them. Since I wanted to make 5, I knew it would take way too many straight pins, I couldn't find any that were all white, and I didn't want to spray paint them. So gluing it was!
Step 1: Punch. Punch. Punch punch punch. Punch Punch. Punch. Get it? You need A LOT of these little flowers.
Someone reminded me that this would be a job for the Silhouette, which is totally true! If you got one of those machines, use it, it will save you a lot of trouble!!
This is about half of what you need for 1 ball. Of course, the bigger the punch, the less flowers you need.
Step 2: Glue a first layer onto the ball, gluing the flowers as close to each other as possible. You can also overlap a little.
Step 3: Bend the petals of the flowers, it will give more volume and interest to the flower balls.
Step 4: Glue the bended petals flowers in between the previous layer, hiding the white styrofoam ball. Be aware that it's almost impossible to completely cover the ball, there will be some styrofoam showing, but it's not super jarring. Still, you want to foresee where the other flowers will go around the one you are gluing down, so you might turn it a bit, move it a little more to the left or right.
It's really quite simple isn't it? You may want to punch half the flower for one ball, give your finger a rest, cover with the first layer of flowers, punch the other ones, and fill in the rest. Or whatever works for you.
My tale of woe:
It took me 3 weeks to make them all. I did 3 in 4 days at first. Then it was Easter weekend. The next week, I did the 4th one but my finger was really hurting from the blister I got and the blister got worse. The band aids didn't help much, sadly. I had to finish punching the flowers for that ball with my left hand (I WAS gonna finish that ball that day! And I wanted to take the pictures...). I had to wait a week before my finger felt up to punching for the final flower. And I made it!! I think I got a callus now lol.
All in all, I'm happy they are done! And that I stuck to my original plan of making 5. But I'm ready to move on now that my spring mantle is officially DONE for this year!!
If you haven't seen it yet, you can check it out here (I didn't take new pictures with all the flower balls- horrible weather = bad lighting= horrible pictures). The Bunny Silhouette can be found here, and the Wooden Flowers I blogged about earlier in the week.
PS: Are you new to my blog? Can I interest you in staying a little while longer: check out my most popular posts (right hand sidebar ------->) or my Projects Page . Or you can learn a little more about me here, if you wish. Either way, have a GREAT day!!
I party at these parties. If you would like to invite me to your linky party, please do so on my linkies page, thank you!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This post was featured here:
Continue Reading...
Can you believe Easter is tomorrow? It seems like just yesterday it was Valentine's Day and I was thinking of Easter crafts but also thought that it was too early. And here we are now and I haven't posted any Easter crafts yet. That's because I realized that time was running out just last weekend, and I quickly finished a couple of projects since.
The one I am showing you guys today is this:
Isn't it cute?! I love it, it turned out really well. Different from what I had in my head, but it works! My original plan was to write SPRING in floral letters inside the tray that would serve as a frame, but then when I saw Allison @ Polka Dots and Paisley's Bunny Silhouette, (and pinned it)my plan changed.
I got this serving tray at Dollarama. I'd been looking for one like this for a couple of weeks, but couldn't find any. This one came out of nowhere, there was just the one on top of some other different trays, as if it was meant just for me!
I spray painted it with the leftover Krylon Blue Ocean Breeze from the Magnetic Pin Dish project.
For the bunnies, I took out some scrapbook paper that would go well for Easter- so pastels. I don't have a ton of scrapbook paper to choose from, but I did want to use what I had. I think it works out, right? The green one I used both sides, which were both green; and also the pink one was yellow on the other side.
I found a bunny template I liked from the Silhouette store and printed it in different sizes. I erased the inside of the bunny to save on ink ;) (that's why it's uneven in the center)
Before cutting into the scrapbook paper, I arranged the cut out templates to see what it would look like.
Only after that did I think it was safe to cut the scrapbook paper. Anyone else always a little scared of wasting some paper by screwing up your project, or is it just me? I traced the template on the paper and then cut it out.
At this point, I found that the bunny cutouts didn't really pop against the blue of the platter/frame.
Good thing I had bought this white contact paper for no particular reason; I just had to cut it to the right shape, which was a little tricky since it was curved, but I managed in the end.
Ahhh that's better! Sticking it was super tricky, though! Had to peel it off a few times...
The finishing touch was little pom poms for the little tails for a little whimsy.
Just glued with my glue gun.
And I used my DUCK double sided tape. I dunno if normal double sided tape is usually that sticky, but this stuff is uber sticky (it's from the window sealing kit we put up last winter). I cannot unpeel it without ripping the paper now.
To hang it, I got this pretty yellow ribbon from Dollarama.
But I thought it would be too wide to use for hanging, so I thought of something different. I cut it in 3...
... tied them all in a knot...
... and braided it.
When it came to actually hang it up, I just used some tape I had lying around. I didn't want it permanent yet so... it's held up so far.
EDIT: It didn't hold for more than a week, even with ducktape. So I hot glued the ribbon to the frame.
And there you have it- my bunny family portrait :)
Cost break down for ya, cuz I like those:
~ platter, Dollarama, 1.25$
~ Krylon Spray Paint, Michaels, 5$
~ white contact paper, Dollarama, 1$
~ scrapbook paper, 3 sheets @ 42cents a sheet, and 1 at 35, so 1.61$
~ Easter colored pompoms, Dollorama, 1$
~ yellow ribbon, 1$
Total: 10.85$ (from scratch)
But considering all but the platter can be reused for other projects as I didn't use a lot, it's really not worth 10$, more like 5$, if even.
More pics of the final project:
I so love the little pompoms :)
I got a bit of a Easter mantle, or fantle,... or bantle (bookshelf + mantle = bantle, yes?) on top of a small (you guessed it) bookshelf in the living room area, which is where it's hanging. I'm just not quite done yet...
I'll post better pics when I can get some better ones. It's really hard for me to take good pictures indoors when the sun is not out and it's late. But thought you'd like to see anyway.
The egg branches in the yellow vase I got at Dollarama for 5$ (1$ for each branch, and there's 5). The vase is also from there, I just painted it yellow like I did my turquoise vase in my bedroom and my pink vase for V-Day.
So there you have it, Happy Easter from my family to yours!
Thanks for stopping by!
![]()
Are you new to my little corner of blogland? May I interest you in staying a little while longer, maybe look at my past projects page, or my most popular posts which are displayed in my right side bar? Or if you'd like to know a little more about me, you can always go to that page too! I'd also love it if you left me a message, just love meeting new friends!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This post was featured:
Facebook page
I party at these parties. If you would like to invite me to your linky party, please do so on my linkies page, thank you!
