Last fall I had the opportunity to take a crepe paper moth orchid class from a master paper flower creator. (Seriously, check out her Instagram!) It was an incredible class and I was very excited to take the pages of notes I took and turn them into my own orchids. Once Christmas projects were done, I finally had time to create them. Then some friends bought their first home and I knew just what to give them! A custom orchid arrangement that won’t die! 🙂 The finished piece was about 27 inches tall.
How I Made the Arrangement
I found a great ceramic vase at a thrift store. It was originally a glossy green and I gave it a modern upgrade with white and 24-carat gold spray paint. I love how it turned out! It was tempting to keep the vase, but it was so perfect for these orchids.
I filled the vase with floral foam and topped it with cardstock so I could glue the white quartz pebbles I found at a local dollar store.
The flowers and buds were made using Lia Griffith doublette in Vanilla/Chiffon. I actually doubled up the doublette (so four layers total) so the flowers would have some thickness. For the pink centers, I used the palest pink in this chalk set and the light purple pen from the Staedtler Triplus Fineliners (love them!!). The stems are doubled or tripled up 18 gauge wire. The leaves are using a very heavy DCWV green crepe I have in my stash that worked out well. I also used Lia Griffith Crepe Paper in Cypress (from this pack) to wrap the stems.
Two of the three rhizomes.
I used wire to have the looped stem attach to the brace.
From above
The back
The arrangement in it’s new home.
This was such a fun project to put together! I’m loving learning more about crepe paper flowers!
Today I’m sharing some Egret Orchid Stems made from paper and wire. Such a fun project to put together. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out!
A real Egret Orchid. Such a stunning flower.
I have a friend that is a plant killer (her words, not mine) and I wanted to give her a plant she couldn’t kill. I also wanted to try out making out a 3D flower and thought I’d make my own design.
Looking online at different flowers, I came across this beautiful Egret Orchid and knew this was the one I wanted to make.
How I Made Them
I took the photo of the Egret Orchid and imported it into my Silhouette Software and traced it, fiddling with the settings until I got a version I was happy with. I also had to simplify the cut lines and delete a bunch of edit points to make the shape manageable. I used this tutorial from Silhouette School (love that website!) to learn to trace images. I use this function all.the.time. I even trace shapes from my library if I need an outline. Such a versatile function!
Once I had the top wing portion and the bottom petal portions created, I found some other orchid shapes in the Silhouette Design Store I could use to create the rest of the orchid shape. I cut them out, inked them for dimension, and glued them together.
The vase was really easy to put together. I inked the paper with several colors to give it a cement look and then glued the pieces together. Inside the vase is floral foam to hold the wire stems. Next time I would put the floral foam inside before I put the vase together. It was a little tricky getting the floral foam inside the narrow top. I also would have liked to have weighted the bottom with something so it wasn’t quite so light. I did pour some of the little pebbles in the bottom, but that’s not enough.
I used the leftover hexagon from the top of the vase to cover the floral foam. I covered it in the black rocks and poked some holes where I wanted to place the stems. I then stuck the leaves in. I used hot glue to secure the stems and leaves and added more rocks to cover the glue.
Vase with floral foam to hold the stems and leaves
Hexagon center covered in small back pebbles to cover the floral foam
Vase with the hexagon cover put in place.
Wire stem structure
Stems wrapped in floral tape and stuck in the vase.
To create the two main stems, I took a three-foot piece of 12 gauge floral wire, folded it in half, and then twisted it to make it stiffer. For each of the flower stems, I took shorter pieces of 22 gauge wire and did the same thing and wrapped one end around the 12 gauge stem, leaving the other end free. One branch for each flower or bud. Then I wrapped the whole thing in floral tape to make it look like one stem. The twists in the wire give the stem a cool, natural texture. The flowers are hot glued to each of the smaller stems.
The leaves were simple. I wanted a leaf that was similar to the Egret Orchid’s actual leaves, and found one in the Silhouette Design Store. I elongated them in Design Studio and cut them in a medium green paper. Then added several different green inks to give each of them dimension. I cut lengths of 22 gauge wire and attached them to the back of the leaves with hot glue. I left the wire longer than the leaf so I could use it to stick into the floral foam. When the glue was dry, I used the wire to shape the leaf so they had some life.
Leaves in the Vase
Leaves in the Vase
Paper Egret Orchid
Side of Paper Egret Orchid
Back of the Paper Egret Orchids
I’m pleased with how the paper Egret Orchid stems turned out. Figuring out how to do the flowers took me a long time, so I’m really happy with how they turned out. I learned some things and next time I’ll do some things differently, but I thought this little project turned out pretty good.
Today I’m sharing my simple winter flocked teardrop door swag I made for my front door. As you can see in the photos, I have a very cheery bright yellow door. Normally I love it, but it makes using traditional holiday colors a little difficult. The wreath I’ve used in years past wouldn’t work on this door. I prefer traditional holiday colors with lots of green and pops of red and white, and perhaps touches of other colors mixed in. But with this new-to-me yellow door, I was not loving the idea of using green and red.
I’ve been searching for something that would work and came across this lovely flocked pine teardrop door swag. I love the big flocked pine cones. I wanted it to have a little more body so I added a few more pine picks with smaller pine cones using floral wire I had on hand. Then I added a sparkly white ribbon to finish it off. I looped the ribbon three times (twisting it so the sparkle was on the outside). I used a piece of floral wire around the center to form the bow and attach it to the swag. The long ends of the ribbons are a separate piece that I attached with floral wire. It came together easily and thanks to good a Michael’s sales and coupons the whole hanging was less than the original price of the swag by itself.
I think the winter flocked teardrop door swag works well on my cheery yellow door and will be nice even after Christmas.
