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Hi folks! How is everyone doing? I hope you are all keeping well wherever you are in the world. I hope you found my last post helpful. Here is the tutorial I promised.
This magnificent beauty is truly the queen of summer and its quirky nature is quite fascinating. Did you know that throughout the day, the sunflower turns from east to west, following the direction of the sun, and then at the end of the day, it resets itself towards the east, ready to start again the following day?
To make this sunflower, you will need the following items:
Sunflower template - this is only available to members
scissors
bone tool
120 - 160gsm A4 cardstock in yellow, black orange, and green here is where I get mine from.
something to draw a round base with e.g. a compass
glue gun and glue fun stick
The first thing to do is cut out your templates. You can cut it out by hand which is what I did or if you have a cutting machine, you cut on the machine. You will need about 20 large petals and 20 small petals. Prepare each petal by folding in half and using your bone folder to score the fold.
You will also need a circular base about 8cm in diameter and a smaller circular base about 6cm in circumference. Stick the smaller circular base on top of the larger base as you see on the left. The reason I do this is so that when I am sticking the petals on, they line up neatly. Starting with the larger petals, start sticking them around the base making sure each petal lies right next to each other. You will need to do at least 3 or 4 layers altogether - 2 layers of the large petals and 2 layers of the smaller petals or 3 layers of the larger petals and1layer of the smaller petals.
Once you have completed the first layer, for the second layer, place each petal in between the two petals below it and continue doing this until you complete that layer. Move on to the next layer and you may wish to continue using the large petals if you still have enough. Move on to the final layer using the smaller petals this time and at this point, you want to start a little bit into the center. Once you have completed the 4th layer it is time to work on the center.
The center of the petal takes quite a bit of time and I use lighter paper for this. You will need 1 sheet of orange A4 paper and 3 sheets of black A4. Cut 4 equal strips (lengthwise) of the A4 black paper.
Bend each strip in half but try to avoid pressing down on the fold. What you don't want are sharp folds. Next, apply glue to seal it.
Then using medium-sized sharp scissors, cut strips along the fold. The tinnier you can cut these, the better but be careful not to cut to the end. Leave about 2-3 cm at the bottom. You will need at least 8 strips of black and 4 strips of orange cut in this way.
Next, fold another sheet of black A4 into fifths and cut lengthwise. For these strips, you will not fold but you will cut tiny strips along one edge of all of your strips. The quickest way to do this is to do two or 3 at a time depending on how sharp your scissors are.
Once all your strips are prepared, starting with the black strips that were folded, roll one strip tightly on itself then add another strip applying glue as you go along. Continue in this way until you have used up all of the folded black strips except two.
Next start adding the orange strips until that is used up. Now take the two remaining black folded strips and add these on after the orange. Now it's time to add the black trips that weren't folded until they are used up. What you want is to ensure that the center floret of your sunflower is wide enough to cover the center base of the sunflower head so you can add as many of these strips as you need.
Finally, add glue to the base of your center floret and place this in the center base ensuring that it covers the entire base of the sunflower.
I hope you give this a go and share your makes with me. If you want the pdf template for this flower, email me at hello@beulahpapercreations.co.uk.
Till next time,
bloomingly yours,
Beulah xx
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