As you saw from last week, I've been trying to reuse some of the cardboard boxes I bought home from school to recycle (but never actually got around to) after making my Phoenix wings.
On Friday, I decided I would like to make an Easter wreath. Not eggs, not bunnies, not lambs but flowers.
I didn't really have any plan of what to do. I went to the garage to the craft shelves and searched for all the flower punches, also grabbing a butterfly punch too.
I knew I had some paints somewhere and found a small bottle of green-pearlescent acrylic paint and a paint brush. Also, I found my stash of coloured envelopes which I always keep from cards I've been given and a paper pad.
The first job was to make the wreath base. I drew around a dinner plate and then placed some smaller circular object in the centre and cut them out.
Next, I painted the wreath green with the Acrylic paint.
Next, I punched 2 large daisy shapes out of all the different colours of envelopes until I had 10 different colours.
To give them a 3D feel, what you need to do is get an old biro that doesn't work and a piece of craft foam. Then, to make the petals curl, you just need to make circular movements with the biro on the petals (or straight lines) and then go around the centre and the petals lift.
I laid them in a pattern.
Next, I used a small circle punch to cut one circle from all the colours and moved them 2 places backwards rather like musical chairs and stuck them into the centre.
After that, I stuck down the flowers. I misjudged the spacing so ended up with a half-space so I punched a lilac butterfly from my wedding punch (made turquoise confetti for the tables and ones to go on the table names from old music)
Next, I added some white gel dots to the edge of the flower centre.
At this point, I punched holes in the top and added string.
To fill in the gaps, I used 2 sizes of tiny flower punches and experimented with making paper Stitchwort, Celandines and Forget me nots, adding details in gel-pens. There was something missing so I used a dark green envelope and a mini leaf punch to cut some leaves and arranged everything.
And voila, here is my wreath!
Got to admit, am very pleased with it!
Pretty much all recycled material apart from the mustard-coloured card and the pink, which were offcuts from previous projects. I honestly think that my flower punches are my favourite craft tools!
What do you think?
xx