Flowers in every shape and form

Spring flowers are blooming everywhere. I think this year the daffodils have been so spectacular. I am not sure if it was all the wet weather we had over the winter but there are vasts drifts of these beauties all around where I live.

Flowers have also featured in my silversmithing class. It is the last class of this term next week and I realised I had not shared any of my projects with you for a while. One of our projects from last term was to create a 3D flower from sheet metal. I decided to work in copper as silver is such a price at the moment. I wanted to make a brooch. The project was to make an orchid and our tutor had several varieties for us to choose from ..

I chose the cymbidium.  The instructions were originally for making paper flowers and we were able to adapt the pattern for making them in metal.
First I had to stick the pieces onto my sheet copper. Then I cut out each piece with a hand saw.

The sawing take some time and there were some very fiddly bits to cut round.
Once I had sawn them out I had to file all the edges and then gently bend and form the pieces in a steel domer block.

The next part was the soldering, which was so tricky as it was quite difficult to keep the pieces in line. I soldered the pieces in 2 groups first with easy solder and then finally soldered these together using hard solder.

It was then a slow process of polishing

until I was happy with my finished piece

It is so hard to photograph as the metal reflects so much but it is a very pretty flower brooch.
It was also a very useful exercise in learning how to form metal sheet into 3D objects.

So my card challenge today has to feature flowers doesn't it. I also decided to have a try at making my own handmade paper flowers from dies. I was really thrilled the way they came out and I will be making more. It means I can perfectly match the colours of my card.

My son in laws sister has just got engaged so I made this card for them; nothing says congratulations more than flowers does it?

The lovely vintage flower image is a new one from Nicecrane Designs and is available to buy here . Ignacio has got some lovely new spring images in his store. He has also sent me some wonderful chick ones to play with for Easter which I will be creating some more guest design work for him soon.
Here are a couple of close ups. I think for a first time my handmade roses worked out OK.

 The flowers were made with my Marianne die and the leaves are Cheery Lynn. The lovely engagement and little tag sentiment are both by Lili of the Valley

I distressed the edges of my papers and also used lots of vintage photo distress ink to give a real vintage feel and I also added 2 brass coloured charms from my jewelllery stash.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Country View Crafts Paper chase
We do dobeedoo sweet as honey
The Squirrel and the Fox Inspired by a book my book is The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Cupcake inspirations flowers/garden
Loves rubberstamping ugly papers my green backing paper is in a pad I have had for ages which I almost threw out as by itself it is very uninteresting. However for this card it is perfect in the background. It just shows you should never throw anything out from your paper stash!
Party Time Tuesdays anything goes
Papercrafting Journey anything goes
Deep Ocean For a friend
Stampin for the weekend spring colours
Craftyhands shabby chic
Crafty catz anything goes
Creative corner rainbow I have all the colours of the rainbow on my card
A creative romance spring flowers
4 Crafty Chicks spring


My Hb and I have a final day of this year's annual leave to use up today and we are going to spend it with Daisy and her Mummy and Daddy ;0) I hope you are enjoying the end of the week and looking forward to doing something special at the weekend. Happy Mother's Day to all the Mum's in the UK for Sunday. I hope you all get treated to some flowers in real or card form. If not just savour the floral display that Mother Nature is showing us at the moment.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x