Artisans who are engaged in artificial floristry and scrapbooking, prefer to make flower stamens with their own hands. To make the flower realistic, you need to pay a lot of attention to this element. In handicraft shops, you can buy any stamens for flowers. With your own hands, you can create something that is not in the shops for craftsmen. In this article, you will learn the secrets of making realistic stamens.
Artificial stamens are not scarce and can be easily purchased at any needlework store. Experienced florists are not always satisfied with the quality of the goods. Often, the stamens are badly starched and do not keep their shape, which is important, for example, in the manufacture of gladiolus, which has a dense middle. The stamens of this flower should be plump, beautifully bent, with neat anthers. But when making flowers of jasmine, apple, rosehip, wild strawberry, you just need thin and delicate stamens, it’s difficult to find on sale.
Pros of homemade stamens
The benefits of homemade items:
- Small material costs - making flower stamens with your own hands is cheaper than buying even not very high-quality goods.
- They allow you to create more realistic products, look elegant.
- If with a large or urgent order you have run out of elements for the middle of the flower, then fishing line or thread, paint and glue will help you out.
- You can create anthers of any shades you need.
So, we make stamens for this royal flower.
Gladiolus stamens
For work, prepare:
- The wire is 12 cm long. It is better that it is light shades, it is easier to paint this.
- Sandpaper.
- Round pliers.
- Acrylic paint, preferably white. Light stamens can be tinted in the process of staining the product.
- PVA glue (clerical or white with plasticizer).
- Flat container for pouring glue and dye.
- An oasis for florists or a kitchen sponge.
The first step will take about 20 minutes. Occupation uninteresting, but necessary to obtain a high-quality result. We will need to sandpaper the wire. The easiest way is to fold the sandpaper twice, put the wire in the middle and pull it with force. This will significantly speed up the process.
Advice from experienced craftsmen:
Do monotonous work in parts, break the process into blocks. For example, today they processed part of the wire for the stamens, sculpt the leaves tomorrow, then complete the process of making the middle for the flowers. This is especially important if you need a lot of stamens. For example, when working on bonsai, when you need to make several thousand stamens from a fishing line for tiny plants.
Paint the stamens
Pour some acrylic dye into the container (titanium white as an option). Add the same amount of PVA glue to it. Shuffle everything. You should get a dense homogeneous mass.
Hold the wire by the end and dip into the mixture. The wire should be thickly coated. Make sure that there are no lumps (they can be removed with a brush). Leave the tip unpainted (2-3 cm). This is necessary in order to stick it in an oasis for drying. Process all workpieces and leave to dry for 4-8 hours or until morning.
Go to the next step.
Materials for work
You will need:
- ground cinnamon (flowers will be fragrant!).
- white floral ribbon.
- a small piece of plastic or cold brown porcelain.
- any high-speed transparent adhesive (“Crystal Moment” or “Second”).
Cut 3 cm ribbon for florists. Cut it in half. Stretch it to stand out glue. Take three stamen blanks and fold them together so that the ends are flush. Now you need to collect them into a single "bouquet". To prevent the tape from sticking out of the flower, leave 5-6 cm free. Now you need to smear the middle section with a small drop of second glue. The top of the stamens should not be glued.
Bend the free ends as it is in nature with gladiolus. A pestle with three branches should come out.
Now you are holding in your hands an analog of a natural pestle. We turn to the manufacture of stamens. From self-hardening plastic we blind brown anthers. Roll up a microscopic sausage (the thickness of a grain of rice). The length of the grain should be no more than 3 mm.
Take the wire. Attach a plastic sausage to it. Put a drop of glue in the center of the grain. Roll the wire in plastic.
Make any groove with a sharp object along the anther. Let the clay dry. Dip it in PVA and then in cinnamon. Blow all the excess from the seed. In gladiolus, the pestle consists of three parts. Collect the “bouquets” using a ribbon cut in half and stretched in advance.
Bend the wire to resemble the middle of a living gladiolus. The process of making stamens for flowers with your own hands is quite laborious, but the result is worth it.
We make flower stamens from a fishing line with our own hands (master class)
For miniature delicate flowers of strawberries, jasmine, rose hips, apricots and many other delicate creatures of nature, you will need elegant stamens from a fishing line.
Materials for work:
- Fishing line (average thickness).
- A candle, a gas burner, matches, a lighter — any fire.
- Scissors.
- Acrylic dye of yellow color.
- Yellow pastel crayon (dry or oily, it doesn't matter).
Pick up a skein of fishing line and bring the tip to the fire until it melts. Gradually cut pieces 2-3 cm long.
What happens at the tip will be the anther of future flowers. Do not wait for it to increase significantly. The size depends on how big the flower you want to make. The smaller the plant, the more elegant the duster should be.
Put a small amount of yellow paint on the surface. Dip there in turn all the molten heads. Acrylic is the fastest drying paint, which is why we use it. Oil paint is not suitable in this case. We are waiting for drying. For one flower, as a rule, you need from seven to twenty anthers. Now toned anthers pastel, so we get a more realistic product. This program item is optional. If pastels you do not have available, then before starting work, make sure that the color of acrylic completely suits you.
Here you saw how to make flower stamens with your own hands. Next, we will talk about where to use the stamens.
Stamen ribbon flower
Where to use homemade middleware? You can make flowers from ribbons with stamens. With your own hands, you will create an interior bouquet, brooch or hair accessory with an unusual decor. Further on the photo you can examine in detail the process of a simple fantasy flower made of satin ribbons with the addition of stamens. According to the template shown in the photo above, cut the petals and melt them.
These are the pieces you should get. Thread the petals. Insert a bunch of stamens in the middle and sew it all together.
Attach a few petals to the flower and glue it around with felt. When we make flower stamens with our own hands, we try to make our products as realistic as possible. Improve your skills and give the world beauty!