helper cats – Page 7 – nancyland.com

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Albie immediately curled up on the rest of the ties, and I set up to make more lavender.

I’m still experimenting with technique, but I try to make a shrubbery’s worth of stems each time, so if they change I can call them varieties or cultivars :) #miniaturejustifications

I’m using paper-wrapped stem wire, purple superfine sand (Activa Scenic brand) for the flowers, tissue paper for the petals, tacky glue, and cardstock painted grayish-green for the foliage. Most tutorials call for lycopodium as foliage, but I’ve decided on this well-designed and versatile punch from Punch Bunch.

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I got my birthday order from The Miniature Garden, which included some 28-gauge paper covered stem wire, yay! Turns out what I’ve been using is 26-gauge, so voilà, the first (subtle) variety. (The #28 is on the left.)

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I cut 1.5-inch (3.8 cm) lengths of stem wire and rolled one end a scant quarter-inch (6mm) in tacky glue.

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Rather than dip the glued end, I pour the sand repeatedly over the stem wire. This builds up and preserves the shape of the flower.

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The sanded stems are placed upright to dry. (The fluffy ones you see on the left are made with Flowersoft, a poofy kind of scatter that I’m considering using.)

The petals on top are made from tissue paper punched with a small flower shape, cupped with a ball stylus, and glued to the flower.

In the foreground you can see the Flowersoft flowers with petals cut from waxed paper tinted with a marker. Behind those are the sanded flowers with tissue petals.

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The lavender spikes are planted in the mounds with an awl and glue.

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These ones were built on #26 wire stems.

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The foliage is shaped with a stylus and glued in around the stems to create a pleasantly convincing, if stylized, base.

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Making more echeveria hen and chicks to cluster in around the lavender mounds. If you look closely above, you can see once again the difference between #26 and #28 (on the right) stem wire.

paperclay_rocks_un There’s an entire molds-worth of paperclay rocks dried and awaiting mineralization. These will be nestled and half-buried around the lavender, poppy and succulents bed as an unobtrusive border.

Happy vernal equinox (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere)!

Finished the stand for the big butt. The clay pot is 9.5 inches (24 cm) tall and 10 inches (25.5 cm) in diameter.

I made the flowers and leaves from various papers I had on hand, 18 and 22 gauge stem wire and florist tape. Working in macro takes up way more room and materials!

I chose the papers because in this context, they looked diseased :)

As I was working, I heard a crinkling sound. It was Napoleon, my helper cat, ensuring the papers stayed put.

The flowers are made from the same kind of rice paper as the leaves. Like I said, they look like they are succumbing to something dire.

I glued a piece of florist foam to the bottom of the pot, and packed in Spanish moss around it. The flower stems were a little too bendy, so I wrapped another length of 18 gauge around them with florist tape.

After I stuck the flowers in the foam, I packed the pot with layers of glue and all my leftover preserved moss from the Sea House Warming Hut living roof.

I heard another rustling. This time it was Albie. I guess Napoleon’s shift was over.

I made a dead flower :(

What do you think of my rendering of disease by toxic chemicals leached into the environment? I used a brown Sharpie marker.

Wait! I don’t want to end this post on such a sad note, so here’s the finished piece again. Isn’t my house a cheerful color? (I didn’t choose it.) I glued bleached moss on the dead side of the pot, and shades of green on the narrow rim that’s still living. Underneath the cigarette is crushed charcoal (and more glue). Note how the living flowers are straining to get away from the big butt. There’s a story here.

Now I want you all to put on gloves and go outside and pick up all the cigarette litter you see.

(If you’re really dedicated to making a difference, you can keep doing this and save them up — carefully, that stench will get on you — and send them to be safely recycled at Terracycle.)

Unless you want this:

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Category: helper cats

Ties, Lavender, Echeveria, Rocks

Big Butt: Complete