There are hardly anyone who doesn’t like fresh flowers. No matter how beautiful they are, they are destined to fade over time. The same cannot be said about skillfully made artificial flowers that will delight you for as long as you want, will not cause allergies and will become a noticeable decoration of the interior.
Fabric flowers
Satin, chintz, satin, velvet, silk, brocade and even leather are suitable for creating fabric floral arrangements. If you wish, you can combine different materials, but it is important not to overdo it in order to get a harmonious composition.
Materials you will need: fabric 100×10-15 cm, scissors, threads with needles and decor for decorating the flower core (beads, rhinestones, beads, pearls)
- Take a piece of fabric, fold one edge to hide the edge, fold the piece in half lengthwise, and secure the corner with thread.
- We sew a running stitch along the entire length of the fabric (forward needle stitch). Having reached the edge, we turn the fabric inward and wrap the end of the fabric in the same way as the first.
- We assemble the resulting ribbon: pull the thread from one edge so that the fabric wrinkles and you get a flower.
- We twist the flower in a spiral, starting from one edge - this will make the inflorescence more magnificent. We shape the petals with our fingers to your taste: you can make them large, blooming, or you can leave a neat miniature bud.
- Having completed the formation of the flower, we secure it with thread so that the flower does not come apart and retains the chosen shape.
- To make the flower neat, the layers should be located approximately at the same level. Secure the flower with one simple seam, across the edge of the fabric. The resulting “rose” can serve as decoration for a dress, hat, or be used as a boutonniere, brooch or hairpin.
Organza flowers
Organza is one of the favorite materials of decorators. It produces not only tulle and wedding accessories, but also flowers. To make organza flowers, you will need scissors, glitter glue, beads or seed beads.
- Cut out a flower with four petals from fabric. The petals can have any configuration, either with rounded or sharp edges. We will need two of these flowers.
- Carefully apply glue with glitter to the outline of the flower; similarly, using glue, we make 2-3 lines on the fabric petal - these are the stamens.
- After the glue has dried, glue one flower to another with glue or double-sided tape. You need to distribute the pieces of fabric in such a way that the petal of one flower stands between the two petals of another; as a result of these manipulations, you will get a flower with 8 petals.
- We decorate the center of the resulting flower with beads, beads or sparkles.
Leather flowers
Leather is a very pliable material, leather flowers look noble and, most importantly, expensive. Leather is easy to work with if you know some subtleties. For example, thick material makes straight petals better; thin leather is much easier to bend and, accordingly, make voluminous compositions.
Treat the inside of the flowers with PVA glue mixed with water in a ratio of 1:4. While the petals are drying, the edges of the future flower need to be stretched so that they take a more attractive shape. Next, collect the petals using a thread and a needle, and decorate the core with a bead. Glue a special lining to the underside of the flower - it will help fix the flower faster.
Flowers from foamiran
Foamiran is a fairly new material, it is a plastic suede or foam rubber. The material is used in creating flower arrangements, is used in scrapbooking, and is used to make toys.
Foamiran is a very plastic material, it stretches easily and remembers its new shape. The shape is fixed using a hot iron. The rich color palette allows you to use the material when creating a wide variety of handmade crafts. In addition, foamiran can be painted with ordinary crayons. Flowers made of plastic suede return to their original position after being crushed and retain their original appearance for a long time.
First make petal templates on cardboard, then cut out flowers from foamiran using them. It is better if you have multi-colored sheets of foamiran, for example, green, white, pink. Next, apply a hot iron to the petals for a few seconds, this will help them curl slightly and take on a natural shape. Using a toothpick you can draw veins; coloring the flower with crayons will help give it a natural look and additional volume. The petals are fastened together with hot glue. Keep in mind that the flowers of their foamiran look as if they were alive, and therefore it is not recommended to use pebbles, rhinestones, or beads to decorate their cores.
Artificial flower manufacturing technologyFlowers made using this technology are practically indistinguishable from real ones.
Introduction
Hundreds of thousands of plant species live on the globe. And flowers occupy a place of honor among them.
It’s hard to imagine how poorer our lives would be, how sad the planet Earth would be if flowers disappeared on it. They are a symbol of love and fidelity, a symbol of respect and eternal memory. Flowers are the most modest and beautiful decoration of our home. Even a small bouquet of flowers gives the room a festive look and creates an uplifting mood. Unfortunately, fresh flowers do not last long. But people can create miracles. They learned to create artificial flowers, imitating nature itself. This is a great art, with its own strict rules and laws, which allow you to achieve maximum similarity, reveal the natural beauty of each flower, emphasizing its characteristic details and features.
Having a keen eye for observation, good taste, and having thoroughly mastered the technique of coloring and processing petals, stamens, and leaves, you can make any flower. And having mastered the art of flower making, you need to learn how to make bouquets correctly, based on proportions and harmony.
Tools
To make artificial flowers you need some special tools(Fig. 1), without which it is impossible to begin work.
Rice. 1. Tools for making flowers: a - bulbs; b - rings; c - knives; g - iron; d - die cutting.
These include:
gurgles- steel balls mounted on metal rods with wooden handles. The number of rolls used is usually at least six (of different sizes). For example: 5, 15, 20, 30 mm in diameter. The petals are processed with boules, giving them a natural shape characteristic of a given flower;
rings made of steel wire of various diameters, which are used for curling petals;
single core knife- a blunt curved blade made of steel wire, framed with a wooden handle. Serve for processing leaves (in the absence of a leaf stamp) and some flowers;
twin-core knife- similar to a single-core one, but with two blades, which are obtained by cutting a longitudinal groove in a blunt steel blade. Necessary for processing reed petals and sepals;
iron- metal parallelepiped 10x10x3 (4) cm with holes with a diameter of 1.2; 1.5; 2; 3; 3.5 mm. A strip of starched dry fabric 0.5 cm wide is pulled through the desired hole in the iron. Thin tubes are obtained, which are used in the manufacture of phlox, primroses, etc.;
medical tweezers— for corrugating petals, assembling small flowers and coloring them. The arms of the tweezers should be the same length, elastic, and come together tightly when squeezed;
scissors- for cutting out petals, leaves, etc. from fabric;
wire cutters- for cutting wire;
awl with a round steel needle 3-5 cm long for piercing holes in corolla-shaped petals;
die cutting- for obtaining corollas of flowers with very small petals, for example, forget-me-nots, lilacs, lilies of the valley. Each die cut should correspond to the shape of the petal of a given flower;
pillows made of hard and semi-soft rubber with a thickness of 1.5 to 4 cm. The dimensions of the pillow are approximately 15x20 cm (the pillows are covered with white fabric). On a cushion of soft rubber, the petals are processed with boules. Leaves, petals, and sepals are mainly used to make leaves, petals, and sepals on a semi-soft cushion. The soft rubber pad can be replaced with a pad of sand, well washed and dried. Rolls, knives, rings, and irons must always be hot when working.
Supporting materials. In addition to fabric, to make even the simplest flower you need to have auxiliary materials: dyes, adhesives, etc.
As dyes In the production of artificial flowers, aniline dyes for cotton and woolen fabrics, Rainbow ink, food confectionery dyes, gouache, ink, and photo paints are usually used. Note that paints diluted not with water, but with cologne or vodka, are brighter, cleaner, and dry faster.
Required colors: yellow, red, blue, purple, green, crimson, brown, orange, black. To create the desired shades and tones, paints are mixed together. So, to get orange, you need to mix yellow with red. You can get juicy greenery if you combine yellow with turquoise. Light greens are created by mixing lemon with blue.
Glue for flowers it must be durable, dry quickly, not leave dirty marks, and not discolor the paint on the petals and leaves. Office glue is no good! You need to prepare the glue yourself.
Flour paste. Sifted flour (1-2 tablespoons) is poured with a small amount of cold water and thoroughly stirred until creamy, then, stirring, heated over low heat until the flour is brewed. Paste is used both warm and cold for gluing paper, fixing “pollen”, that is, starch, semolina on the stamens, and gluing petals to the core of the flower.
Dextrin glue (mail). The finished yellow-brown powder is diluted with warm water. Glue is used like paste for working with paper, stamens, and petals. If the glue has dried in the cup, then you need to pour a little hot water and, when it softens, drain off the excess water and stir.
PVA glues. These are the best glues for making flowers.
Gelatin glue . 1 teaspoon of gelatin is poured into ½ cup of cold water, after 40 minutes (after swelling) 2 tablespoons of flour and 1 teaspoon of sugar are added. Everything is thoroughly mixed and brought to a boil over low heat.
Wire. For making flowers, wire of various sections is suitable: thin, medium, thick. For the stems, use aluminum wire; its thickness depends on the weight of the flower. Steel wire is not suitable. The flower should sway on the stem, which gives it more naturalness.
Paper. Tissue or crepe decorative paper of various colors is needed for wrapping the wire. Most often, green and brown paper is required. If you don’t have a colored one, you can paint the white one in the appropriate color.
Cotton wool. White cotton wool will be needed for entwining the stems and making the cores of some flowers. If colored wool is needed, then white wool is painted in the desired color. The paint is diluted with water to the desired tone, cotton wool is dipped into it, lightly squeezed and dried on paper.
Threads. For the stamens you will need threads of various colors. You can use darning, iris, floss. The most commonly used threads or darning are brown, yellow, orange, burgundy, black and green.
Basic Operations
Stem flower. The stem is the base of the flower. It must be quite strong and rigid, since in addition to the blossoming flower, it contains leaves and buds. Before you start making flowers, you need to learn how to wrap the wire with cotton wool and paper (Fig. 2).
Rice. 2. Making stems, attaching leaves.
It is better to practice on a short wire 10-12 cm long. Take the wire in your left hand and hold it between the thumb and forefinger, and with your right hand, place a strip of thin paper 0.5-0.8 cm wide on top of it at an angle of 45°. Using your left fingers the hands rotate the wire towards itself around its axis, causing the strip of paper to spirally wrap around the wire. The paper should lie neatly on the wire, without wrinkles, tightly wrapping it in a spiral. While there is no skill, the wire can be lightly greased with paste before work.
The stems of buds, stamens, and wires for leaves are wrapped in the same way. If a thick stem is needed, the wire is wrapped with a very thin layer of cotton wool, smeared with paste and then wrapped with paper.
Petals, leaves, stamens. The main material for making flowers is fabric. Flowers can be made from cambric, madapolama, calico, chiffon, crepe de Chine, silk, satin, chintz.
How to starch fabric. Any fabric for flowers must be starched. Starch is prepared as follows. Pour 2 cups of water into a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Then a tablespoon (with the top) of potato flour (starch) is diluted in a small amount of cold water and poured into boiling water in a thin stream, stirring occasionally. You should get a thick jelly without lumps. If there are lumps, then filter the hot jelly through cheesecloth.
A piece of dry fabric is spread on an oilcloth and slightly cooled jelly is applied to it by hand. A second piece is placed on the first piece, the whole procedure is repeated again, etc. The starched pieces of fabric are removed one by one and, without squeezing, hung on a rope, grabbed by the edges with clothespins. You can starch cotton fabrics in another way. Dry fabric is crumpled in your hands and dipped in hot starch (jelly), soaked well, excess starch is squeezed out with your fingers and dried on wooden sliding frames.
Silk fabrics - chiffon, crepe de chine, natural silk are recommended to be gelatinized. The gelatin solution is prepared as follows: pour 2 teaspoons (without top) of gelatin into a glass, fill the glass halfway with cold water, leave for 1 hour, top up the glass with water and heat it in a metal container until the gelatin is completely dissolved.
Do not boil the gelatin solution under any circumstances!
The fabric is immersed in a hot gelatin solution, the excess is squeezed out without twisting, and dried on a line, like starched fabric. Well-treated fabric rustles like paper.
Making a pattern. To make a flower, you need to have patterns of its parts: petals, leaves, sepals. For patterns you will need thick, thin cardboard. On each pattern they write the name of the flower, indicate the number of petals, corollas or leaves, and their serial number. All patterns of one flower are strung on a thin wire. The starched fabric for flowers is folded in four, pinned in several places with pins, patterns are applied, traced with a simple “TM” pencil and then cut out exactly according to the design so that pencil marks are not noticeable. It must be remembered that the patterns must be applied to the fabric along an oblique thread (Fig. 3-a), otherwise the petals will not be given the desired shape during processing. But if the pattern has the shape of a corolla, that is, individual petals are collected together in 3, 5 or more pieces, then some petals will inevitably turn out along a straight thread.
Rice. 3. Placement of the pattern on the fabric along the bias thread (a) and petals with an allowance for gluing (b).
If the petals need to be glued together so that the flower takes the form of a bell, then an allowance is made on the pattern at the junction (Fig. 3-b). Leaves for flowers are cut out only along an oblique thread.
Coloring of petals and leaves. To color petals, leaves, and paper, it is more convenient to use paints dissolved in a small amount of boiling water. Before painting, the petals are moistened in cold water, wrung out using paper napkins or between the palms. The fabric for the leaves is painted in large (0.5-1 m) patches, dried, and then starched. If the petals are monochromatic, without shades, they are painted completely, immersed in a saucer with paint, the excess paint is squeezed out on the edge of the saucer and, one at a time, laid out with tweezers on a newspaper to dry. In some flowers, only the middle or edges of the corollas are painted. The edges of the petals are either tinted with a brush, or 5-10 corollas are carefully folded together, moistened in clean water, squeezed between the palms and rotated, lightly touching the very edges of the corollas with paint in the saucer. Dry the whisks, placing them one at a time on newspaper. But most flowers have a variety of shades and almost all petals have a greenish-yellow bottom. Such petals are painted like this: 5-10 petals are carefully folded according to size, that is, large ones with large ones, and small ones with small ones, moistened in water, and squeezed out. Use your fingers to pinch the middle of the petals and paint the lower part in a saucer with salad paint, and the upper part in a saucer with another paint. Strict care is taken to ensure that the colors do not merge, but smoothly transition from one color to another.
Stamens. The stamens of flowering and ornamental plants are very diverse. Compare the stamens of lily of the valley, forget-me-nots, chamomile, cornflower, water lilies, scarlet poppy, etc. Each flower is uniquely individual. The stamens decorate the flower, and they need to be done carefully, making them as life-like as possible.
Stamens are made from gauze, bobbin thread, floss, silk, and wool. “Pollen” is made from semolina, sealing wax, pata, var, rosin, small sawdust, and tooth powder. It is better to starch or gelatinize the threads for the stamens. To do this, the threads are pulled at a certain distance from one another and soaked in hot starch so that they do not stick together.
Starched dry threads are wound around two fingers or two pencils to make stamen tassels. Their size and color depend on the flower. The resulting skein is removed, the middle is secured with wire, which is then bent in half and twisted at the very threads. The skein is cut in the middle, the threads are trimmed with scissors - a core is obtained from individual threads-stamens (Fig. 4).
Rice. 4. Making stamens from threads.
Stamens for 2 pencils do this: take pencils, as well as wire 20-25 cm long, threads of the desired color are tightly wound on them, then the wire is bent in half, twisted, the pencils are pulled out, the resulting skein is cut in the middle, aligned. The stamens are ready. Their ends are carefully greased with paste and dipped in yellow or white semolina. For “pollen,” semolina is painted as follows: dry paint is diluted with cologne or vodka, semolina is poured into it, mixed, and dried on paper. Stamens are made from gauze in this way: a small piece of crumpled gauze is placed in the middle of a 25 cm long wire, the wire is wrapped around it in the middle, the wire is twisted under the bundle, and the sides are cut, making the tassel convex.
The colored heads of the stamens are made from pata, which is prepared on the basis of glue and paint (additives may be different). For example, they use a mixture of flour, water (a teaspoon each), some glue and dry paint of the desired color.
If there is no dry paint, then instead of water take a teaspoon of liquid paint. This can be “Rainbow” ink, concentrated whitewash paint, gouache, ink (not alcohol). To get black shiny heads, use shoe polish with rosin. A piece of shoe polish and the same amount of rosin are heated to a boil and stirred. The ends of individual stamens are dipped into the hot mixture and black shiny heads are obtained. In the same way, heads are made from sealing wax or rosin alone.
Rice. 5. Making stamens by pulling the fabric through the hole of the iron.
For some flowers, the stamens are made of starched material in the form of tubes. Strips of fabric are cut along a 1.5 cm wide thread and pulled through a hole with a diameter of 5-7 mm using a hot iron (Fig. 5). Stamen-tubes are found in flowers such as anthurium, calla, etc.
Chamomile
Artificial daisies are made from well-starched chintz, silk, thick cambric, satin, to make the daisies look more beautiful, the blooming flower is collected from two corollas (Fig. 6).
Rice. 6. Chamomile.
Field daisies. Field daisies (white and yellow) are smaller than garden daisies. In white chamomile, the area of the corollas adjacent to the core (no more than 2 cm in diameter) is painted a pale greenish-yellow color. To make the color natural, without sharp color boundaries, the corollas are tinted while wet.
Yellow (brown, lemon yellow) daisies are made with brighter petal edges. To do this, wet corollas are completely painted in an even yellow or brown color, laid out one at a time on a newspaper, and with a soft brush or cotton wool on a match, brighter paint is applied to the ends of the still wet petals. In Fig. 7 shows patterns of flowers, buds and leaves of chamomile.
Rice. 7. Chamomile pattern.
Core. For the core of daisies you will need cotton wool, a bandage, floss threads, darning of the desired color, from which a low, dense brush with a diameter of 1.5 cm (for field daisies) and 2 cm (for garden daisies) is made. To do this, soft threads or darning are wound around two fingers 30-35 times. The core is made convex or with a depression by carefully trimming the ends of the brush with sharp scissors. Yellow daisies have a brown core, white and colored ones have a yellow-green core.
Corollas. Each chamomile petal is processed on semi-rigid rubber with a double-core knife on the face and a single-core knife on the back (Fig. 8). A single-core knife can be replaced with a small boule. In the middle of each petal from top to bottom, use a hot two-core knife to make a deep groove. This is the front side of the chamomile. Turning the corolla of the chamomile face down, run a single-strand knife along the sides of the middle groove along one vein, as well as a vein along the contour of the petal, trying to guide the knife along its very edge. A medium-sized loaf of bread is poured from the face into the middle of the corolla. Before this, the middles of the corollas are pierced with an awl. The corolla to the bud is “bulged” from the inside out.
Rice. 8. Processing the petal with a single-core knife.
Leaves and calyxes. Leaves and calyxes are cut out from well-starched green material. The chamomile leaves “sit” directly on the stem; they are processed with a single-core knife from the front and back on semi-rigid rubber. The gluing cups are pierced with an awl in the center and treated with a ball of soft rubber.
Flower assembly. When assembling a flower, the wire with the core glued to it is held with the free end up. The first corolla is pressed against the base of the core, greased with glue, the second so that its petals fit into the spaces of the first corolla. The last thing to attach is the cup-glue. The bud is made from one smaller corolla, the petals of which, raised up, almost completely cover the core. A cup-glue is glued to the base of the core: The main stem of the chamomile is made of aluminum wire 40-45 cm long. The wire with the flower is grafted (screwed) onto the stem. In order for the flower to sway, the length of the wire from the base of the flower to the stem must be at least 8 cm. Then the stem is wrapped in green paper, at the same time placing the bud, as well as the leaves, one below the other. For a bouquet, make several daisies without buds.
Daisies can be placed in a low vase. A bouquet of white and yellow daisies will become more beautiful if you add a few artificial cornflowers to it.
Poppy
In nature, yellow, white, lilac, red, pale purple, and pink poppies are found.
Field poppies (Fig. 9) are made from red satin, calico, scarlet, red silk, and crepe de Chine. The most natural poppy flower is obtained from crepe de Chine or dense cambric.
Rice. 9. Mac.
Poppy heart. The poppy core consists of a crown and numerous stamens. The poppy is made from cotton wool. A small cocoon is wound into the middle of a 20-25 cm long wire (Fig. 10). The wire is bent in half and twisted under the base of the resulting ball, the diameter of which is 1-1.2 cm. The top of the ball is covered with a 6x6 cm square of green crepe paper. At the base of the ball's core, the paper is secured with black threads and the crown is tied crosswise 4 times. The stamens are tied up in the crown.
Rice. 10. Making a crown (the letters indicate the sequence of the operation).
Stamens. Poppy stamens are made from black spools of starched thread or from black copy paper. Bobbin threads No. 10 are wound on 3 fingers 25 times, pulled in the middle with thin wire and the ends are trimmed evenly. You will need two such stamens. The stamens are lightly coated with glue and dipped in semolina, which can be dyed pale green. Both tassels are applied to the crown, the stamens are evenly distributed around and secured at the base with threads.
Rice. 11. Making poppy stamens.
Stamens from carbon paper are made like this: across a sheet of carbon paper, a strip 4 cm wide is folded in four and cut on one side by 2.5 cm, obtaining a fringe (Fig. 11). Then this strip is folded with a tassel, the ends of the fringe are smeared with glue and dipped in semolina. A strip with fringe is glued in a circle to the finished poppy-stamen. Excess paper under the crown is cut off.
Tinting the petals. Poppy petals (4-7 pieces) are tinted dry. The sharp lower end of the petals is treated with ink or purple and even black ink. Using a soft brush or a cotton ball on a match, draw an almond-shaped spot at the bottom of the petals (Fig. 12, a).
Rice. 12. Processing poppy petals: a - tint; b - obtaining veins and corrugation.
Petal processing. After drying, the petals are processed on semi-hard rubber with a hot single-core knife, drawing the veins in a fan-shape from the face and in the spaces between them from the inside out. To get a beautiful fan, the corrugation of the petals begins with the middle groove, which is drawn from the top of the petal to the almond-shaped spot. This groove divides the petal into two halves. In the middle of each half, another similar groove is made (Fig. 12, b). These guide grooves will help to correctly guide the other strips; the result is corrugated petals, the tucks at the base are smaller and larger at the top. After processing with your fingers, the edges of the petals are pulled out, and the middle and dark spot are strongly squeezed out with a large hot bubble on soft rubber.
Rice. 13. Making adhesive.
Leaves and gluing. The leaves and cup-glue are cut from greenish-gray fabric. The backing (Fig. 13) is squeezed out with a boat-shaped loaf. The leaves (Fig. 14) are corrugated on both sides with a single-core knife and wire is glued on the inside.
Rice. 14. Making poppy leaves.
Bud. A bud made of cotton wool has a cocoon 2 cm long. The cocoon is pulled along with a thread, the entire cocoon is smeared with green paste and sprinkled with finely cut wool. An incision is made in the upper part of the dried cocoon, into which a small crumpled piece of fabric of the same color as the poppy petals is glued. This is a bud beginning to bloom. This bud can be made a little differently. Two corrugated petals are glued to a small dome with stamens - one opposite the other. Glue the cup-glue, wrap the stem with cotton wool and then green paper (Fig. 15).
Rice. 15. Poppy bud.
Flower assembly. A poppy flower consists of 4-7 petals. From 7 petals, a poppy is assembled as follows: 3 petals are strung and glued one after another onto a wire with a crown, then 4 more are glued. When assembling, the flower is held head down, the glue is allowed to dry and then the stem is wrapped with cotton wool, which is lightly greased with paste or glue and wrapped a strip of green (not bright) paper. Below on the stem, 2 leaves are fixed at once, and between them a stem with a bud. The poppy stems are made bristly and shaggy, for which they are smeared with glue and sprinkled with finely chopped wool, dyed green. Due to the wide variety of colors, poppies are used - for bouquets and compositions separately and in combination with other plants.
Knapweed
Garden cornflowers (Fig. 16) are larger than field ones and their colors are more varied. They are white, lilac, reddish-pink. To make cornflowers, you can take any thin, but well-starched, dense material. Garden cornflowers are cut out according to the pattern (Fig. 17), cutting out 2 corollas per blooming flower and 2 corollas per bud, as well as 8-10 green leaves.
Rice. 16. Cornflower.
Rice. 17. Pattern of corolla, bud, cornflower leaves.
Coloring the corollas of field and garden cornflowers. To prevent the small cloves of cornflowers from becoming shaggy during the dyeing process, you need to cut out not corollas from the fabric, but slightly larger circles size than the pattern. These mugs in a stack of 10-12 pieces are moistened in clean cold water. Excess water is squeezed out with your fingers or using paper napkins.
Field cornflowers are painted as follows: blue paint is diluted with boiling water and poured into 2 saucers. Add a little water to the first saucer and use a piece of cloth to determine the resulting tone of paint, which should be lighter than the paint in the second saucer. It is recommended to select tones and tint in daylight. Wet mugs are first immersed in light paint, the excess is squeezed out on the edge of the saucer and laid out on paper or newspaper using tweezers. Using a soft brush or small cotton swab, paint the center of each circle with dark paint (from the second saucer). The dried mugs are stacked in 3-4 pieces, pinned and the rims are cut out according to the pattern. The center of the corollas is pierced with an awl.
Corollas for white cornflowers are painted slightly differently. The mugs are moistened in cold water, squeezed out with napkins and laid out on paper. For dried but still wet circles, a greenish-yellow spot with a diameter of 2-2.5 cm is drawn in the center, which should not have sharp boundaries. Dried mugs are stacked in groups of 3-4 and the rims are cut out.
Corolla processing. All cornflower corollas are processed with a hot single-core knife on semi-soft rubber. The whisk is placed on the rubber and grooves are made along each clove from the edge to the center with a knife. This is the wrong side of the corolla. Then the corolla is turned face up and one groove is drawn along the sides of the midrib with a hot single-strand knife, due to which the midrib becomes convex. The largest tooth of each petal is gently lifted upward with your fingers. The middle of the corollas is treated with medium-sized boules. For a blossoming cornflower, the center of the corollas is “boiled” from the face, for buds - from the inside, so that the corollas close into buds.
Stamens. In nature, the stamens of cornflowers are very complex. For an artificial flower, the stamens can be made more simplified; this will not lose the decorativeness of the cornflower. Stamens for field cornflower are made from bobbin threads, blue and purple floss in the form of a tassel (as indicated in the “Stamens” section). The ends of the stamens are smeared with paste and dipped in tooth powder or white semolina. Stamens are made for both the flower and the bud. For white cornflower, black, blue-violet stamens are possible.
Flower assembly. The wire with the stamen tassel is held with the head down. Lubricate the base of the brush with paste and glue it to it, stringing one whisk onto a wire. Then string the second whisk and glue it so that the teeth of one whisk fit between the teeth of the other. 2 corolla-buds are glued to the second stamen-tassel. A thickening in the form of a jug is twisted from greenish-brown cotton wool under the flower and bud, smeared with paste so that the cotton wool retains its shape. Stems made of thin wire are lightly wrapped with cotton wool, then with green tissue paper. These short stems with a flower and a bud are attached, like daisies, to peduncle stems made of aluminum wire 30-35 cm long. The upper part of such stems is wrapped in green paper and slightly bent in the form of an arc. A flower is attached to one peduncle, and a cornflower bud is attached to the other; leaves are located along the stem, one lower than the other. The leaves are processed in a simple way. Each leaf is folded lengthwise and the edges are slightly pulled out.
Wildflowers are good in a bouquet with several ears of ripe rye. A bouquet of scarlet field poppies, white daisies and field cornflowers will look great.
The beauty of flowers has captivated people since ancient times. That’s why they try to imitate them by making whole bouquets from various materials.
Such crafts are still made today - from paper, fabric, metal. Some of them are true masterpieces. Modern stylists offer them as fashionable additions to your clothes, but you can make such things at home. Let's learn how to make artificial flowers with your own hands.
Paper flowers
The simplest and most accessible material is paper. You can decorate your dining table with flowers from it. To create you will need available materials:
- scissors;
- glue;
- paper napkins;
- threads of the same color.
Arm yourself with colored napkins. White flowers are beautiful, but bright and bold ones will look better. Fold one of them in half and then make an accordion out of it. Take a thread and tie the piece of paper in the middle. Then use scissors to trim it to the desired look.
You can make them more delicate - cut the petals in a semicircle. You can make a triangular shape. Gently peel back the paper to make the petals look more natural. When the flower is ready, you will need a stem. If you plan to decorate the table with it, use a regular cocktail straw.
Felt flowers
Soft and cute flowers are easy to make with your own hands. They can be used to decorate household items, and they are also used to make various accessories: hairpins, elastic bands, brooches.
Thread, scissors and material are all you need to make these things. Cut the felt into pieces, each 10 cm long and 2.5 cm wide. Now we make neat cuts around the perimeter, but not too often so that the fabric does not fray. At the next stage, we fold the felt like an accordion, and then tie it with threads in the center. Now all that remains is to slightly bend the petals, which will make the flower more beautiful.
Tulle flowers
Let's move on to one of the most beautiful options that can decorate any costume or item. Take tulle and make 8 squares out of it. The side should be 20 cm.
Take one of them, fold it in half twice, and then once diagonally to make a triangle. Use scissors to cut off the wide end - this will make the petals triangular. Do a similar procedure with all the pieces of tulle. Now the blanks need to be stacked on top of each other. Take a thread and a needle and make a few stitches in the middle. Now lift the petals to form a bud. Don't forget to secure the base - you should use threads for this. Try to sew as tightly as possible.
Now you know how to make flowers from common materials. All you need is simple tools and a little diligence, and the result will not disappoint.
Flowers are the most beautiful thing that nature has created. You can admire them endlessly, and since a modern person spends most of his time at home or at work, that is, in a certain room, decorating the interior with flowers is a popular tradition. But it is not always possible to decorate your home with fresh flowers. What to do in this case? Buy or make your own artificial plants.
Of course, a freshly cut bouquet of roses will decorate any interior style. But at the same time, it will fill the room with an aroma that can cause allergies, rotting bacteria, if the water is not changed in time. And this beauty, unfortunately, is short-lived, and the price is not cheap; in any case, in order to constantly arrange arrangements of fresh flowers throughout the house, you need to spend a lot of money.
Another thing is artificial plants. You will only have to spend money on their purchase once, and then they will create a cozy environment for many years, giving the interior a given style and finished look.
By the way! Today's technologies are so advanced that many artificial flowers look “life-like”, and it is impossible to verify the opposite even by touch. Often people realize that this is an artificial flower only after noticing the lack of soil in the pot or water in the staged container.
Phytodesign of a room for living with artificial flowers is a whole science. But in order to decorate your home with them, you don’t have to be a professional designer. It is enough to study the issue comprehensively:
- find out what types of artificial plants there are;
- understand their types and analyze the difference in manufacturing materials;
- decide what is best to decorate the interior with - a vase of flowers, a pot, a wall or table composition;
- choose the style of artificial decoration to match the style of the interior;
- choose a color scheme that matches the design of the room;
- learn how to care for artificial plants so that they last a long time.
If you think about it, living cut and potted plants have many disadvantages.
- They require certain conditions of detention.
- They need temperature and humidity conditions.
- They need to be watered, fertilized, replanted, or the water in the vases changed daily.
- Living plants can be attacked by diseases and pests that will have to be dealt with.
- Some of the indoor plants actively cultivated on windowsills have poisonous parts.
- And a person can be allergic to any living flower.
Undoubtedly, it will not be possible to replace living nature with artificial ones. But, if you compare the advantages and disadvantages of living and artificial plants, the latter will have much more advantages and much fewer disadvantages.
Advice! If you love flowers and green plants, purchase hypoallergenic artificial specimens. They are made from environmentally friendly polymers, and any prototype that exists in nature can be found today in artificial form, regardless of the season.
Artificial plants: pros and cons
The principle of decorating a home with artificial flowers has many supporters and opponents. But today there is no longer any need to prove that the home interior should contain an element of phytodesign, and that artificial plant decorations will best cope with this role.
Table. Artificial flowers in the house: pros and cons.
Advantages | Flaws |
---|---|
As can be seen from the table, the advantages of non-living plants are much more significant than the list of their disadvantages, many of which are possessed only by low-quality artificial flowers.
By the way! It is precisely because of their many advantages that plants that do not require care are gradually replacing living specimens in the interiors of not only offices, but also residential apartments, and even private houses with a garden plot where one could, if desired, set up a flower bed.
Types of artificial plants
All natural diversity is displayed today in an assortment of colors created according to their natural prototypes. Sometimes they even look much more stylish than their living “brothers”.
Advice! If you still want to feel a floral aroma from time to time, there is a brilliant solution - moisten a synthetic plant with essential floral oil. A few drops will be enough, and an aromatherapy effect will be added to your favorite scent.
Fake flowers are not inferior to real ones in the variety of colors and shapes. But they have one advantage - they do not need either a water or soil environment, so a composition of artificial plants can be placed not only in a flowerpot.
Table. Varieties of compositional solutions.
Composition | Image | Description |
---|---|---|
Bouquet in a vase and more | ![]() | It can be placed in a vase of any style, shape and size, or attached to the wall, located under the glass surface of the table, decorate the dining table, if desired, even stand next to each device personally (mini). Another alternative is a floor vase. For spacious rooms, these floral decorations are used very widely. They can hold artificial flowers two meters or more high, which are not easy to find in nature. |
Potted plant | ![]() | Most often used to simulate growing a potted plant. In this case, you can go one of two ways: bring the look of the composition as close as possible to the natural one by choosing an authentic pot or “planting” container; may have a defiantly unnatural appearance to emphasize the style of the room |
Basket | ![]() | Who hasn't dreamed of a basket of fabulous snowdrops that you can admire around the clock? With artificial flower material and a stylish basket, this is possible. The Provence design style is especially suitable. And if you put lavender in a basket and use essential oil to provide it with the appropriate scent, the effect will be amazing |
![]() | If there are no free horizontal surfaces, you can use vertical ones. Artificial plants are designed in the form of panels, herbariums, mounted on the wall and creating a unique room decor effect. | |
Curly composition | ![]() | In the style of vertical gardening, you can decorate the entire wall and even the ceiling |
![]() | In principle, this can be any glass container, closed or open, ranging from a small vessel to an aquarium. To create a stylish mini-garden, it will be enough to simply attach artificial plants to it |
By the way! In some countries, artificial flowers are considered a talisman that cleanses the house and normalizes the energy of the apartment. In addition, they will certainly perform the function of decorating the interior of the room, giving it completeness and style.
Creating a composition to combine it with the interior
Of course, creating an impeccable complex composition of artificial plants requires, if not professionalism, then at least certain knowledge, experience and taste. But, like any design work, decorating the interior in this way must necessarily begin with a project plan. And here the possibilities and options are practically unlimited, only by the budget allocated for decoration.
Advice! The quality of reproduction of floral and plant decor depends on many factors, but before implementation there is always an idea, and the plan for its execution must be thought out to the smallest detail.
Interior decoration with artificial flowers step by step
To avoid disappointment when decorating with artificial flowers, you should start with a clear plan, embodied on paper or a computer monitor. Be a designer. They don’t do anything without prior planning and budget assessment.
Step 1. First of all, you need to determine in what style the rooms you will decorate are decorated.
Step 2. Think about the forms in which you want to install (hang) future artificial compositions. If you don't have enough ideas, look at pictures in flower magazines or find them on the Internet.
Step 3. Decide on the color scheme and sizes, and also decide whether you will select artificial plants that are suitable for you, already arranged, ready-made (bouquet, basket, pot), or whether you will try to create your own compositional solution from various plants.
Step 4. Find out prices for floral products, complete designer arrangements or individual plants and flowers. Having determined the desired sizes, shapes, colors, calculate the budget in various options - from the production of hand-made plants to the services of professional florists working with artificial flowers.
Step 5. Buy what you have chosen or create it from scrap materials (a new trend today is very beautiful - large interior flowers made of paper). And start arranging/hanging the future beauty. You can change the compositions in places countless times until the result satisfies you.
Caring for artificial flower decorations
The created or purchased composition must be kept clean. There are many different ways to do this; the choice of the appropriate one, first of all, depends on the material from which the plants are made.
- For flowers made of soft material, such as felt, a feather duster is suitable.
- If the plants are made of polymer clay, modern plastic, or made of porcelain, they can be wiped with wet wipes that do not contain an alcohol component.
- Latex-coated flowers can also be wiped with napkins or washed with a sponge.
- Fabric compositions can be dry cleaned.
- Almost all soft plants can be tidied up using a steam cleaner.
Important! Before purchasing plants, be sure to ask for quality certificates, make sure there is no unpleasant “plastic” smell and check them for hypoallergenicity.
Decor by room design style
There are a great variety of interior styles. It is not necessary to know them all when choosing artificial flowers for your home. Think logically, rely on your taste, look for examples of similar interiors in pictures or websites, and pay attention to what kind of floral decorations are used in them.
- For a hall and living room in the Baroque or Rococo style, choose large classic flowers and plants - roses, gladioli, peonies, climbing green or coniferous plants. They can be placed in floor or table vases or baskets.
- For an Empire style bedroom, you can choose hydrangeas, ivies, carnations, roses, chrysanthemums, placing them in tall vases on a leg.
- And if the bedroom is decorated in Provence style, small lavender bouquets or wall compositions of wildflowers and herbs just beg to be included.
- Mediterranean cuisine can be decorated with sunflowers, hyacinths, climbing bougainvillea, imitation spicy or medicinal plants.
- Orchids, gerberas or irises are suitable for a minimalist bathroom.
- A Japanese-style room can be decorated with bonsai or cherry blossom branches.
- African style involves palm trees, but it can also be miniature Uzambara violets.
- The boho style requires a variety of colors - bouquets and compositions can include poppies and cornflowers, daisies and roses.
- An office decorated in high-tech style can be decorated with succulents or bonsai.
- A Scandinavian-style room will look complete and not overloaded if it is decorated with tulips, freesias, snowdrops, and ferns.
- You should be especially careful when approaching floral decor for a nursery. It is best to hang cheerful bright floral panels on the wall of the room or place large flowers made of soft materials stylized in a cartoon style in floor vases.
Whatever you choose, even a modest bouquet of artificial lavender or a sprig of rosemary will bring life into the interior and help make the environment more homely, cozy, and at the same time sophisticated.
Video - Artificial flowers for interior decoration
If ever DIY artificial flowers were predominantly children's crafts, today thousands of adults are already engaged in this area of creativity. They are happy to decorate their apartments with such ready-made flowers, even the most sophisticated and expensive interiors. Maybe because these look no less expensive and prestigious, not at all associated with sad events or children's creativity lessons.
DIY artificial flower arrangements
To understand which products are the most popular today, you should open any website dedicated to handicrafts for sale, as well as visit decorative salons, which are often quite expensive.
Three main materials in DIY artificial flower arrangements allow you to make things that will be indistinguishable from living ones not only from an arm's length distance, but also to the touch.
First of all, such material is silicone. It is with its help that blanks, petals, leaves, inflorescences are made on presses, which in structure, nuances of shades, etc., are practically indistinguishable from the real thing.
The only disadvantage of silicone flowers is their high price and complex production process, which makes it difficult to make them as attractive at home. A little cheaper is the latex option, but the quality practically does not suffer, and the price is much lower.
But fabric inflorescences are considered optimal in terms of price-quality ratio. Moreover, information about how to make artificial flowers with your own hands with the help of, say, silk and satin fabric, there is a lot, since this art is already hundreds of years old, it originated in ancient China and is still thriving successfully, delighting all lovers of beauty.
An exception in a huge seam DIY artificial flowers - photo cold porcelain products. This is painstaking, responsible work, but the end result is, for example, the most delicate sprig of lavender and lily of the valley, in which the smallest inflorescences are sculpted.
This interior decoration can be used to decorate a holiday table, and to accent a mantelpiece, coffee table, and so on.
DIY artificial flower bouquet
Popular varieties DIY bouquet of artificial flowers- This is a round bouquet in the Biedermeier style of large, large inflorescences, for example, roses and peonies, complemented by small green elements.
It is also very fashionable to place one flower of a rose, tulip, lily, or gerbera in different vases, and clean water must be poured into the bottom of the vases to give the impression of a living cut plant.
In addition, using the appliqué technique, entire DIY artificial flower paintings. To do this, a plot is selected, a background is drawn, and flowers from the selected material are glued onto it, be it modeling, fabric or plastic. Pictures completely embroidered with ribbons look very impressive, while all the flowers look convex, bright, shiny, this effect is especially noticeable on a dark contrasting background.
Use as an excellent gift DIY artificial flower topiary. This product looks very impressive and complex, although in fact there are no particular difficulties in its manufacture.
Topiaries are made from a lot of materials, decorated with ropes, coffee beans, and candies, but if you cover the ball, say, with the heads of artificial roses, then it will be both a beautiful craft and a luxurious bouquet for the holiday.
In the photo above you can see a small one for a similar application DIY artificial flowers master class. You can choose any base for topiary, such as making a paper ball using the papier-mâché technique, or cutting (buying a ready-made) blank from foam plastic. The main task is to decorate the entire surface tightly so that the base does not show through.