Christine de Beer - effortless floral craftsman
Bark covered heart
- 10 July 2012
- click to send Christine a smile
- and more
This Design Tutorial is featured on The Conna Flower and Garden Club (Ireland) website. It is part of their Floral Art Lessons program that demonstrates new techniques, ideas and principles of Flower Arranging by International Designers.
Draw a large heart shape on the cardboard. Cut the heart out.
Cut strips of cardboard to glue to the outline of the heart to make a box shape. To make it easy to bend the cardboard to follow the heart shape run it through your fingers. This collapses the inside "honey comb" of the cardboard that gives it shape.
Glue the strips to the heart shape with hot glue
Follow the outline all around the shape
Score the cardboard to make a neat fold to create a sharp v at the top.
Continue to glue the edge
Join the bottom for a perfect cardboard heart.
To give the shape the look of wood, add a second strip at an angle.
Glue the second strip all the way around.
Follow the top part of the heart.
Close the bottom part of the heart.
Break the sharp edges by bending the cardboard in your hand.
Glue reeds into the heart to form a grid for your design
Cross the reeds to give the design strength
Mikado reed grid.
Now for the messy part!
Peel the bark from a log with a knife.
Paint the bark with wood glue.
Fit the pieces of bark all around the heart. Start at the edge and move around with the wood grain. It is almost like building a puzzle.
Hold the wet glue in place with butterfly hair clips and continue to add bark.
When the top frame is done set aside to dry.
Start a second row using the first to hold everything in place.
When the entire heart shape is covered with bark set it aside to let the glue dry before designing
Remember to remove all the clips.
Instead of the reed grid you can also place a wire mesh in the shape to keep the plant material in place
Or press the sharp ends of the test tubes through the cardboard
and then glue twigs to the cardboard to add in dried flower material
Thank you Conna Flower and Garden Club for featuring my design tutorial.
Sign up for my weekly newsletter
Every week I add a new design with related tutorials. Be sure to subscribe to receive an email notification with design inspiration.
Tutorials
Keep in mind that in order to make a realistic looking fantasy design element, such as the wreath, you must focus on how this item would grow in nature.
Butterfly hair clips are the perfect little claws to help you hold tiny items in place while you wait for glue to dry
Related Designs
Retail florists and wholesalers are already designing, ordering and preparing their product range for Valentine's Day. This is my article that I wrote for the December 2012...
Cover a wreath frame with bark and cotton for a textured Christmas wreath design
Sometimes you find such a beautiful plant that you just can't bring yourself to cut it. This design explores using the entire plant, pot and all, in a design
A fragile looking heart made from twigs that can hold a lot of orchids
My article and wedding direction board design featured in DIY Weddings Magazine
For a softer autumn leaf pod turn the leaves so that the bright side faces in when making the pod.
Some picture highlights from our collaborative workshop that I taught focusing on braiding and weaving techniques to create a floral carpet design.
Last Wednesday I had such a flowery fun evening teaching a collaborative floral carpet workshop focusing on braiding and weaving ideas from my book the effortless floral craftsman...
A cascade of orchids growing over a slice of wood. Easy to design... and even easier to maintain!
...ok not really that fancy- it’s made from paper pulp. A cardboard box Yule log… really. In the spirit of 2020- I am inspired by the endless stream of cardboard boxes being...
An... everything is moving... design. The tulips are growing and the small vine filled vase is bopping around in the water. And if you lean them against each other just right it...
Using dried floral material is so trendy right now. But the longer lasting the design elements the more effort you have to put in to stop it from looking lifeless.
A blossom frame to display the prettiest anthurium of the whole bunch!
I needed the wreath to be as light as possible to make sure it would "dance in the rain" on the flexible metal stand.
This is the fourth and last design I did for my Floral Fable demonstration.