A Pencil Flower Tutorial

Okay...here goes. This is my very first tutorial, so bear with me...At the winter CHA 2008 in L.A., I learned how to make a pencil flower out of decorative paper at the "Time Flies" booth. They were teaching these floral make-and-takes to promote their green decorative paper. It's fabulous paper. You can find it HERE. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to make a floral bouquet. So, I designed my own petals and leaves, and used a pencil instead of the pen they provided. Here's what the flower should look like. Now, I'll explain the steps to get to this final result.

Supplies Needed:
1. Two Sided decorative cardstock. (The cardstock will hold its shape better than the paper)
2. A petal template (make sure you have a tab added to the bottom of the petal, this will allow you to wrap the floral tape around it.)
3. Leaf template
4. 2 1/4" x 4 3/4" strip of the same double sided cs for the center.
5. Floral Wire
6. Copper wire
7. Pencils
8. Floral Foam
9. Container (I used a mug both times because that's what I had on hand.)
10. Hot glue gun (You can use any strong glue, I'm just impatient, thus the fast drying hot glue)
11. Scissors
I cut 10 flower petals, and 2 or 3 leaves and ink distressed them to give them depth. (My leaf is True Thyme (Stampin' Up), and I took my stylus and drew random leaf pattern lines on it to make it more realistic.) I like the Walnut Ranger Distress Ink for dp's with browns in them. Make sure you do 5 petals with each side of the dp. You then glue wire to the back of the petals with hot glue. 5 with the blue showing, and 5 with the brown showing. Note to self: Don't take photos with petals in mug. Take them like the single flower above, laying on a flat surface. *grin*

After my petals were ready, I began cutting thin strips 3/4 of the way down on my 2 1/4" x 4 3/4" strip of dp. This will be the center of your flower. Put double stick tape along the bottom and wrap it around the top of the pencil. The eraser should be about 1/2 way down in the middle.
Then, starting at the base of each strip, take your thumb and index finger fingernail and slide it up to the tip. This will curl them. For the pink flowers I did this before adhering the petals, and for the blue, I did it afterward. It's easier to get a deeper curl if you do it before. It just makes it a bit more challenging to attach the petals.

Now you're ready to assemble the petals. First, choose what color you would like to be your center. For this flower, I wanted the blue. So I put 2 ink distressed petals on one side and wound the wire around and down the pencil, and then 3 on the other. Then take your brown sided petals and put 3 behind the 2 blue, and 2 behind the 3 blue and repeat the wire wrapping. You should now have 5 petals on each side. Now attach your leaves the same way. Put one behind one side and 1 or two behind the other and again, wrap the wire down. It should look like this:


For the next step, wrap floral tape thickly around the wire, starting at the base of your petals. This will hold the petals in place.
After your petals are securely attached, you can bend, curl, and arrange them. I just took one of my other pencils and wrapped the tips of the petals around it to curl them back. This gives them a bit more dimension.

I made three flowers this time and arranged them in a mug with floral foam in it. Two of the flowers are like my original arrangement, but I didn't have the same dp for the third flower. You could even make a poinsettia arrangement and glue gold micro beads to your eraser, or add stamens to the center of your flower too.

To add a bit of focal interest to my arrangement, I took thick covered floral wire and wrapped it around a pencil to create a swirl effect and placed them amidst the flowers. I also added a floral pick with a sentiment by Hero Arts Clear Design Thinking Of You Messages this time.

Here's a photo of the arrangement I made in March of this year for the Dirty Dozen on Splitcoast. I made 5 flowers for this project. You could make a variety of shaped flowers too. The "Pick a Petal" Stampin' Up set would work well for this project. Just make sure when you are cutting the petals out, that you cut a tab for the base.

I hope this was easy enough to follow. These flowers are really pretty simple and are great for teachers in a bouquet, or for little girls, or even secretaries on secretaries day. You can use a pen as a center too, I just liked the look of the eraser.

Hope you have a fantastic weekend!! And thank you so much for visiting my blog!!
Happy Stamping!!

Supplies:
Stamps - Clear Design Thinking of you messages (Hero Arts)
Paper - Bohemia (My Mind's Eye),
Ink - Walnut (Ranger Distress Ink)
Accessories: See supplies listed above