Submitted by Keely Rendell

Laminated Wire Flowers

One of the things that I can’t resist collecting is wire. I’ve stripped copper wire from old organs, stripped the outer coating from normal wire to reveal the lovely wire underneath and even stripped an old dumped washing machine of its wire & door (will find a use for the door bowl one day).

I also have a fascination with laminating so after inspiration from a friend who worked in France on a project, (see link of the week) I came up with these laminated wire flowers.

On an entirely different subject, I came home last week to find a fire engine & crew at the end of my cul-de-sac. After the initial panic had abated, I discovered that it was a small ‘bush fire’ in the pits at the end of the road. Phew!

 Here’s a picture of my onion squash to compete with Marc's

Instructions

You will need:

Lengths of soft wire

Pliers

Scissors

Cotton or roll of thin beading wire

CD writer pen or Sharpie

Needle & Blu-Tack

‘Interesting’ magazine pictures

Laminator

Laminating pouches

Raffia

This is not a quick ‘make’ and it took me a while to collect enough interesting pics as I don’t buy magazines but I think the end product is worth the wait.

Bend & shape the soft wire into a flower petal shape and add another length of wire running down the middle. Make sure you leave a length of about 5” at the base of the petal for joining all the petals together. The end size of the petals is up to you. Mine are about 6”.

Take your sheet of laminated pictures and using the wire petal shape as a template, draw the outline on the sheet. (Put the petal shape on the sheet & roughly mark the inside with the pen. Do this with each petal as each shape will be slightly different.)

You should be able to get 5 petals from one A4 sheet. Remove the wire from the sheet and cut out the petal on the inside of the pen marks. I found it easier to complete each petal in turn as they were all slightly different sizes and I didn’t waste time trying to match each piece of sheet with each wire frame.

Using the needle & blu-tack, prick holes around the edges of the petals about 1mm apart. Work all the way round the outside of the petal. The next step can be done with either thin beading wire or cotton. With the wire frame on top of the laminated petal shape, thread the beading wire or cotton through the petal shape and round the wire, all the way round. You may need to use more than one length of wire or cotton. Then using the beading wire or cotton, make the veins of the leaf by using the central ‘spine’ and the outer edges.  

(I used cotton on this one)

When you have five completed petals, hold all of them together and twist the wire stems together as best you can. Using the raffia, bind the stems tightly. I found the best method for this is to use three or four strands of raffia and knot at the top. Bend one of the stem ends to form a loop and tie the knot end of the raffia to the loop. Twist & bind the raffia all the way up to the base of the petals and then back down again to the wire loop. Fasten off in the loop. This will keep the raffia in place.

Now is the time to bend the petals into shape. Twist them so that they form a flowerhead shape and then gently bend the top third or half outwards to form the effect you want. My mum thinks they look like lilies in the shape that I used.

Of course you can change the design and use smaller petals with different shapes, or use acetate sheets coloured with the appropriate pens or acetate sheets from packaging with pictures stuck on the top if you don’t have access to a laminator.

I’ll be selling my flowers on Etsy.com along with some of the other things that I’ve made: http://mimzistar.etsy.com

Link of the week: http://www.flickr.com/photos/deepgreenart/sets/72157601237643860/

Moan of the week:

Why is it that when I’m looking for a job, there’s nothing out there?

Interesting fact of the week:

According to an article in Zest magazine, it tells you not to put raw potatoes in the fridge as it can damage their taste and cause the natural sugars to turn to starch, which when cooked can lead to higher levels of carcinogenic acrylamide. Pre-soak spuds for 30 mins prior to cooking to reduce the formation of acrylamide by up to 23% or leave them to soak for two hours to cut the risk by 48%.

a) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylamide

b) My mum used to tell me not to leave potatoes soaking in the water as it took away their ‘goodness’.

c) If you read the Wikipedia article or any other ‘doom laden’ article, don’t take too seriously. Life’s too short to worry about everything…