Recently, Sugarwings has been creating with a glue gun, for hours, every time she comes over. She makes a lot of things with it, some odd, some cool, but these? I was impressed.
The translucent glue makes a delicate looking petal, doesn't it? She is using them for pencil toppers, and painting the tips of the petals with nail polish.
The pencils are wrapped in ribbons, and have gift tags on them, since we have plans to give them away, but I've also asked her to make some for me on dowels that we will wrap in green ribbons and use to fill a vase.
She asked me to do help her put a tutorial together, and I took photos of each step. I'd found this vintage gown at an estate sale (for $1!!!) and we thought it would be fun to do a dress up photo shoot for the the crafting session. (And I am always happy to have an excuse to take photos of this sprite).
She has put the pictures into an iMovie and was planning to narrate it, but hasn't had a chance to get back to that since she started, so I'll add the video later. For now, I'll give you the directions, as told to me, with the photos, in case you'd like to make some roses of your own.
Just in time for Valentine's Day!
She says is it very important to let your glue gun warm up, and wanted a photo of her waiting for the glue to get hot. She uses a low temp gun and likes the longer sticks.
The glue is squirted onto parchment paper.
Fold the paper over the blob of glue, and burnish it flat. She is using a toy spatula from a Play Doh kit here, but I've also seen her use a pencil as a rolling pen.
Cut a strip of the flattened glue.
Roll up the strip of glue and attach to the end of the pencil (or dowel) with a dot of more glue.
Make more flattened glue ovals, and cut them in half.
The straight line is the bottom of the petal that will be glued down, the curved sides are the tops of the petals.
Roll another piece of flattened hot glue around the center spiral.
She trims it as needed at this point.
And adds rows of petals.
It is a messy job, and you need to use pressure to hold the flower on and form it, which is why low temp glue guns are the way to go!
When done, touch the tips of the petals with nail polish.
Lovely!
Here are a couple of tips from me, not from her. I haven't made any myself, but I did help with painting. I think that the roses could benefit from a trimming with sharp scissors to get some of the chunks and strings out. But I didn't interfere with the ones she made, some have more places that could use a trimming than others.
When I painted the flowers with her, I had a Q-Tip dipped in nail polish remover to smooth out the color a little. I thought it made the bud more natural.
The blooms are also beautiful as is, with no color. The strings and glue chunks aren't quite as noticeable that way too.
To wrap the pencil, I used tacky glue around the base of the flower and about an inch or so down the side of the pencil, and tightly wound the ribbon around the pencil into the glue. I tied a bow of ribbon over the top and added a tag.
Now, I need to give these away…. hard to do, but I have been promised that she will make more for me to fill a vase with! Thank you, little Grandfairy.
