My Creative Workbook

Christine de Beer - effortless floral craftsman

Cane, Ti leaves and Sisal Disk Armature

23 November 2016

Place the stained and coiled cane on a flat working surface

See the Tutorial below for more detailed instructions on how to stain and spiral cane coils

Cut a thin dowel into snippets

Stain the sticks as you did the cane. I used spinach leaves. (see the Tutorial below)

Start in the inside of the cane and glue in sticks to seperate the coil

Simply glue both sides to touch the coil

Move along the coil and glue in sticks

Creating a wide flat spiral

Cane coil spiral ready to design with

For this design I air dried ti leaves. Cut the leaf in half.

Glue in a ti leaf to follow the spiral

Slightly overlap the leaves to cover the entire spiral

Cover the outside of the cane coil spiral

Set the coil aside for the glue to harden

Break up some blueberries into a mixture of wood glue and warm water to stain the sisal

Dip the sisal in the glue mixture

Let the sisal soak in the glue mixture

Set the sisal in the open spaces on the cane coil

Move from the outside of the coil inwards

To fill in the entire disk shape

Cut snippets of grass

And glue it into the shape. Make sure you follow the direction of the spiral to create a swirl

Disk shaped armature ready for the flowers

Stand the coil shape on a few twigs. See the Tutorial below for detailed instructions

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Tutorials

1 January 2011

Sisal Stars

Paper towel cardboard tubes create the basic shape of my stars

28 August 2013

Unravel Sisal string to get Sisal Fibers

I purchase a huge roll of sisal string to use... sometimes as string, but mostly I unravel it for the fibers

9 September 2015

Layered sisal and twig armature

small sisal fibers create a mat like armature

26 June 2012

Berry dye for sisal fibers

Soak sisal fibres in strawberry and black berry juice to stain it purple

7 September 2012

The Three legged trick for Upright Constructions

When in doubt, always give your armature three legs. Two legs are simply not enough and four legs will wobble if it is even slightly off balance.

21 September 2016

"I found it this way" demonstration Floral art Structures: Twig Tangles

For my "I found it this way" Floral Art demonstration at The Capilano Flower Arranging club, I began all four of my designs with basic armatures made of Twig Tangles and we discussed the importance of a stable structure as a foundation to a structural design. The twig tangles create a basic armature for the designs to be suspended from. Each design is crafted that it almost looks like a foraged or ‘found” natural object

Related Designs

9 November 2016

All things Autumn (by which I mean all things chocolate): Loosen Up

This was the first design I did in my "All things Autumn (by which I mean all things chocolate)" floral art demonstration

19 June 2013

This Moment

Create an armature design outside the vase

9 September 2015

Fall Treasures

A sisal mat armature for fall twigs flowers and leaves

27 May 2015

Limelight

My RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2015 Limelight Floral Art Design. My Limelight design was inspired by a slice of lime. But I wanted it to look like it was spun by a butterfly. I used Sisal, silk and loads of Lisianthus flowers and 9 grapevine plants. Each tiny stem was placed in a water filled glass seahorse or test tube to keep it hydrated.

26 June 2012

Diamond Jubilee Waterfall

To commemorate Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee and the 20th Anniversary of Friends of Government House Gardens Society a Horticultural event was hosted in the gardens and Great Hall of Government House in Victoria, Canada entitled British Columbia Blooms.

23 November 2016

All things Autumn (by which I mean all things chocolate): Another perspective

This was the third design I did in my "All things Autumn (by which I mean all things chocolate)" floral art demonstration