Christmas Wreath and Tutorial

One of my latest assignments for Bo Bunny was to make an item of home decor for Christmas.  I decided to make this Christmas wreath which was so fun to make!  I used the totally gorgeous Bo Bunny Noel range which I think works beautifully on this.

There have been a few requests for a tutorial so here goes!  As this will be very long with loads of photos I will do the rose and the leaves today and then will do the other 2 flowers and the wreath in another post tomorrow :)

The first flowers I am going to show you are the roses...

I have seen a few tutorials for these now but the first time I saw them and was inspired to make some was after seeing them on a my friend Gemma'a blog My Simple Life that she learned to make at a crop.

Firstly you need to cut out three 6 petal flowers, I use a Woodware punch but you could just make your own template and use that.  I have a large and a smaller punch so I can make them in 2 different sizes.

Cut the flowers as in the following photo so that you have cut out a 2 petal from 1 flower, 1 petal from another flower and the last flower just has a slit. I normally fold the flowers in half a few times to work out where to cut evenly.

Take the 3 main flowers and glue the 2 edge petals of each one together so you have 3 full flowers in different sizes, a 5 petal, a 4 petal and a 3 petal.  You can peg them while they dry although I use glossy accents and it normally just dries in a few seconds anyway.

I then use a thin paintbrush to curl the edges of each of the petals a bit.

You have 2 options with the base of the 2 bigger flowers, you can either cut a piece away or flatten the bases.  I usually use the back of my hole piercer to flatten them so they will sit nicely.

I usually cut a small piece off the end of the 3 petal flower.

Then take the 2 petals you cut off before, curl the petals and then roll them around something (I used my trusty paintbrush again!) and glue the edges together.

Then take the single petal and roll it (you might have to cut a small piece off the bottom).  Put a blob of glue inside the 2 petal roll and put the 1 petal roll inside.  You will probably need to trim the end of this to fit it neatly in the flower, you just need to test and judge how much to cut off.

Then just start gluing the pieces together with a big blob of glossy accents starting with the biggest at the bottom and moving until you are satisfied that the petals are in the best alignment.

 

 Leaving you with your rose :)

  

 For the leaves I just drew a template on some cardboard and then cut out a whole lot of leaves.  I inked all the edges and then embossed them in my cuttlebug with one of the cut and emboss butterfly folders.

Once they are embossed you can either sand or ink the embossing to enhance it or leave as is.

I then just bent the leaves a bit down the middle to give them a bit more shape and depth.

I hope I have explained everything properly, it is quite hard to put down in words, if anyone has any questions just let me know! :)  I will be back tomorrow with the rest of the tutorial. :)

TFL!