Saturday, August 11

A is for Agapanthus

I started my self-imposed challenge to make one plant each week from A - Z.  My first plant is A for Agapanthus.

These are some of the things I used to make my plant. To make the flower heads I separated green embroidery floss into two strands and stiffened them with white glue.  

While I waited for those to dry, I washed my hands, got another cup of coffee, and asked myself why I hadn't just bought a kit to make these?!

Carole at Wee Cute Treasures made a beautiful Agapanthus using one of Pascale Garnier's kits. Go see! :D

Inspired, I punched and shaped more flowers from my hand painted paper. There will about twenty tiny flowers on each stalk.


Then I gathered 10 pieces of one inch long embroidery floss. I tied them together in the center with wire. I guessed at the size of the flower head. I looked at Carol's flowers and the planter box she made for them. I made mine about 1.5 cm. The smaller the measurement, the more I like the metric system. :D

Next there was "some assembly required." Don't ask how long this took me. I'll tell you.When I got to this point I had spent about five hours on this one plant.


I made my leaves with photo copy paper painted on both sides. I usually use masking tape. The copy paper worked great for this plant. By the way, I discovered that "cloth covered wire" is not really covered with cloth. It is wrapped with embroidery floss. I made my own because I didn't have any and didn't feel like going shopping...

So here is my little Agapanthus. Hope you like it.  :D


You can be sure that next week's plant will be a whole lot easier to make! It will start with the letter B.

Hope you have a great day! May you have many, many flowers in your garden!






15 comments:

Kez said...

absolutely gorgeous! please can you tell me how big the flower punch was that you used :)

Cath said...

I have been keeping an interested eye on your palm trees but had to comment when I saw your agapanthus....one of my all time favourites! Yours are amazing and I should think you have more satisfaction making them yourself rather than from a kit.
Cath @ Bits 'n Bobs

mcddiss said...

una planta muy bonita y un buen trabajo

besitos

Mari

Mary said...

All of your hard work turned out a very lovely plant that you should be proud of making from scratch. I'm looking forward to seeing 'B'.

carmen said...

preciosa!

Ilona said...

Hi Kathi! Yes, flowers making is very very time consuming I know :D!! But your Agapanthus turned out very well as your palm tree did: my compliments.
As you know and can see on my blog I love to make my own flowers too. But it is time consuming and rather difficult to find out what to use for every flower. Because every flower is different.....
I follow your progress with the flower 'B' and I wish you luck ;).
Hugs, Ilona

Anita said...

That is so beautiful!

petitemoonbeams.blogspot.com said...

These are beautiful. I know kits would be better for time but this quality of flower has to make you feel a glow of accomplishment.

All I can say is, "Wow!"

I like the idea of an alphabet letter for each week. I may use this idea, if you don't mind!

Pat

dalesdreams said...

Oh, Kathi, it is just lovely! I'm not surprised a bit about the time it took, but so worthwhile, I think. :)

Kathi said...

Thank you for your sweet comments. :D
Yes, this was very time consuming. My daughter commented, "Mom, that's crazy!" She may be right! :D

I used a 3/8" flower punch for the flowers. Tiny. I wanted to make an Amaryllis (A) but don't have the punch I need. When I get to the end of the alphabet, maybe I will start over? LOL

maribel said...

Se ve preciosa la planta y es que como me gustan las plantas.

Eva - tatalamaru said...

Que bonita te quedó esa planta, gracias por compartir la idea. Besos

Kajsa said...

So beautiful!

Sandra said...

Love your agapanthus Kathi. You might have noticed on my blog that I do all my quarter scale flowers myself too, but I use kits because they are cheaper than buying all the punches I would need (IF I could get them small enough!) but making them from scratch would definitely be satisfying. Making plants is definitely time-consuming though, even little, simple flowers. I'd love to try agapanthus, they look great!

temari by the sea said...

A wonderful challenge, cant wait to see the whole alphabet. Wonderful work!