Birthday Play Day : Crepe Paper Flowers

It was my birthday last week. Had a wonderful time and have lots to share but I have to start at the end! I finished my birthday week with a play day yesterday where we made crepe paper peonies from a pattern by Lia Griffith - that link will take you to her photo tutorial. You need to join her site (only $5 per month) to get the pattern templates, and she has a youtube video of her process as well - all very helpful. 

Didn't take process photos because you pretty much cut the crepe paper and then start gluing with a hot glue gun. But was so thrilled with how they turned out. Mine was purple - used the gold for the stamens. Because of the way I've set the outer petals, my flower looks more like an Oriental poppy - but I am just fine with that :-)

My friends made the pink and the red

I don't know if you've used a hot glue gun, but you need to be careful about the drips of glue and the stringiness can be a challenge....we used an old cake tin for the mess

I took lots of photos from different angles because I so love how they turned out

And then they took theirs home...so last night, while watching the rugby, I cut more petals and this morning I was able to make 2 more so I now have a bunch on my table :-)
I took a progress photo of this one before adding the outer petals to show that you could make them more like Californian poppies

and here it is complete. I tried the yellow stamens instead of the gold on this one.

I also made a yellow one, and I can't decide which one is my favourite

And then, just for fun, I tried spraying through the hot glue leavings since I've had past experience with hot glue stencil fun.

Not a fabulous result of circle detail, but fun backgrounds for cards.
Just one more photo of my flowers :-)

Hope you've had a creative and fun weekend. Talk to you again soon.