One pattern three ways - Tulip Tutorial

The other girls at Roots and Wings Co (RWC) and I thought it would be fun to start something new. We all start with the same pattern. Then, we each take a spin at creating the project, using whatever mediums we choose. This will be a fun way to give you guys original templates for your own use and a couple of different ways of executing it. It will give us a chance to let our creative juices fly! We hope to do this more regularly since it was so much fun for us to put together. We will be adding our pictures to our flickr group and can't wait to see your take on our templates.


The first installment of one pattern many ways is a Tulip. Use this template. Cut out one of each item on the template.

I used felt since it was easy and I want to show you how easy and cute creating can be.

Along the straight side of the flower piece, sew a running stitch. I did mine by hand. Just long stitches that you are going to use to gather in a second.

Wrap the flower around to join to form your flower. The tab goes inside the flower and gives you something to attach to the other side of the flower. By hand I sewed a blanket stitch.

Now that the flower is basically a cone shape, gather the bottom of the flower until your flower looks like this:

Tie the ends of your thread together so it stays.

Attach your flower to the end of a dowel then secure the flower with some glue. I like E-6000.

Glue the circle inside the flower to cover up the glue and the dowel.

With some glue attach the leaf to the dowel. I wanted my leaf to wrap around the dowel a bit.

I took some starch and curled the petals and the leaf.

That is it! Stick it in a vase, or make some friends for it. Now show me what you can do with it.
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Katrina's version:

To make my Tulip pen holder I purchased an inexpensive votive holder. I filled it with art sand. Your kids can have fun making sand art. This is a great way to get them involved in making a special gift for some one. I used 4 pencils that will make my holes for my pens to go in.

To keep the sand from spilling you will need to melt some wax. Here you can see I made a simple double boiler (you never want to apply heat directly to wax, it will catch fire) using a votive holder (you will need an oven mitt to pick it up). I have just enough water in the pan so that it only goes up about 1/2 in up the votive holder. You don't want water getting in your wax or wax spilling into your nice pot for that matter. Try to use an old pot you don't care about. I am melting a white votive candle.

Here is the tricky part. Slowly pour the wax on top of your sand. In order to get the wax to melt and sink into the sand you will need to warm up your container. I have a heat tool that is used for embossing. It blows hot air but not like a hair dryer. It does not blow the air as fast. Point the heat tool at the side of your glass (keep it a few inches away) at about the level of the top of your sand. Be careful not to blow melted wax everywhere. If the wax on top has already started to harden you can use your heat tool (not too close though) to melt it again.

Soon you will see that the wax is going down into the sand. In the above picture you can see that the wax has gotten as far as the yellow layer. Keep doing this until the wax has gone all the way down to the bottom. You will need to add more wax to the top from time to time. You want to add just enough to saturate the sand. You pencils should still be in the sand. Let the wax cool most of the way then twist your pencils to get them to release from the sand wax base. As you remove them be sure to move them around a bit to widen the hole just a bit. You want your pens easily fit in and out of the holes.

I purchased some generic pens from the dollar section at Walgreen's. They were in great pastel colors. I removed the end of the pen here so that I could push it into the bottom of my tulip.

Here you can see the end of the pen inside my tulip. I then added a touch of glue to the end and inserted it back into the pen. This will keep your flower on the end of the pen. There is no glue on the flower itself.

Here are my 4 tulips before I made my leaves.

I used a blanket stitch to sew the leaf around the pen. I make about 4 stitches to hold it to the pen.

I then continued the blanket stitch up one side and back down around the tip back to where I stitched around the pen. From the base of the leaf I straight stitched up the center of the leaf. When I had stitched about 1/3 of the way up I put one stitch through one of the stitches holding the flower together. This keeps the leaf from slipping down on the pen. I continued my straight stitch all the way to the tip of the leaf. I then pulled the floss a bit to help make the leaf curl a bit and tied it off.

This is an alternate way to make the leaf. I used ribbon and made a little loop. I used white floral tape and wrapped it all the way down to the base of the pen. I pulled the ink barrel out and tucked the end of the tape into the pen tube. Then I pushed the ink barrel back into place. For a no sew version, use tissue paper instead of felt. Wrap floral tape to secure the flower to the end of the pen. Wrap around the pen till you get to where you want to add your leaf. Wrap around one end of the ribbon once or twice and then around the other end of the ribbon to make your leaf loop. Wrap the tape all the way down to the end as I have shown above. P.S. floral tape isn't sticky until you stretch it. As you wrap it around the pen stretch it every so slightly.

This is a pencil that my oldest made in art class at school. It looks like they used that foam like kids clay. It is super cute and I felt it was worth posting. ~Katrina
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Rebecca's Version

Last but not least is my paper version of this flower template. I actually have tulips right now and they are tinged with a second color on the edge of the petals. So, I used cardstock with a white core. I printed the template right onto this cardstock. Instead of cutting I tore so that you could see the white core along the edges.
I also used chenille stems for the flowers stem instead of the dowel Anjeanette used, or the pen that Katrina used. I also rolled the ends of the petals towards the center to look like the real flower boquet we currently have.

Rebecca