Rise Up With Some Paper Lilacs

Hello Helmar Fans, Raelene with you today sharing the paper Lilacs I made for my husband's Disworld themed 40th Birthday.  My husband has been a Terry Pratchett fan since he was young and has been collecting his books for decades, he still has the first book he bought second hand with his pocket money so I really wanted to throw him a Discworld themed party.  I had lots of ideas for decorations and food and a epic cake I wanted to attempt but I ran out of time so only got to make the one decoration.

For those of you unfamiliar with Terry Pratchett's Discworld series I suggest heading to your nearest bookshop and grabbing The Colour of Magic, Hogfather or Nightwatch to get you started or watching The Colour of Magic or Hogfather or Going Postal on whichever streaming service you can find it on where you live.  It is well worth it.  Lilacs are what the rebellion wear in Nightwatch, hence the title of this post.

To make my Lilac I researched and found some videos of people making them and from those made my own plans, click here to see the video I found the most helpful.   I decided for added strength I would use Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive to adhere the florist wire to my paper/cardstock, Helmar Acid Free Glue for any paper on paper gluing and to use 3 shades of purple cardstock from the Purple Passion Cardstock Pack that Spotlight stocks. 
You will also need Green cardstock for your leaves, Green Florist Wire, Green Florist Tape (close to your leaf colour), some jewellery making tools (wire cutters and round nose pliers), small ball tool, small 4 or 5 petal flower punch and a scrap of foam to shape your flowers on and poke the wires into to let the glue dry when you add the base to the flower.

We had a bit of a working bee for punching and shaping flowers and we spread it out over a few weeks to try and reduce the repetitiveness. To make it go quicker I pre-cut each sheet into strips just wide enough to use the punch, One person would be punching, one would be shaping while I cut strips.

Once they were all punched and shaped it was time to add the wires and the bases.  I started by cutting the scraps of cardstock leftover from punching the flowers into small strips (I cut them about 1 inch by 1/4 inch as my flower punch was bigger than what is ideal for this project), then I put a drop of Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive on one end of the strip, I wiggled the wire in it and then folded the end just over the wire, set aside and do the next one.

 

Once the Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive was dry I put a small amount of Helmar Acid Free Glue along the strip and tightly rolled it up, set aside to dry.
Once that was dry I added a dot of Helmar Acid Free Glue to the flower base and placed my flower onto it and set aside to dry.

  
 

Next I decided to put my florist tape half way up my paper base to give it a more natural flower base feel.  Just wind the florist tape around, starting half way down the flower base and firmly pressing as you go.

Then I created my leaves, I decided to create the same leaf as the lady in the above video but as my punch was much bigger I had to create bigger leaves just like I did with my flower bases.   I used Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive to adhere the wire into the fold as it gives a much stronger hold.

 

I followed the wiring instructions from the video but adapted towards the end as I had a few less flowers than she did and my flowers were bigger (worry I have no pics of this process as I was wiring at night and no one was around to take photos).

I hung my finished project on our DND cupboard door until the party and then on party day it went on the table nearest to hubby, I think it looks so good next to my Marzipan pigs.

Comments

[Raelene C]

Thank you

[Theresa Kamp]

Great creation Raelene