ANTHROPOLOGIE-LIKE VASE

Today I have just a quick little tutorial on making one of these Anthropologie-like flower vases. 

They also sell cute little jars with the flowers on the top.

There are a lot of directions you could go with this project.  I still want to try to make a flower out of air dry clay and then try painting the flowers more like the ones on the jars and vase above.  But today, I'm just showing the most simple flower you can make.

BE PATIENT AND BE PREPARED!  

The flower looks really, really ugly until you get it painted!  

First, get everything you need all lined up:  taper candle, scissors or tongs, plastic spoons, and matches or a lighter, and a hot glue gun, E6000 glue, or some other quick-drying strong glue.  It would also be good to have the vase you'll be attaching it to all ready and waiting.

Now you're ready to made each petal of the flower.  Hold a spoon, dome side up over the flame.  You can use tongs or a pliers to hold the spoon to prevent getting burned.  My directions said to hold it an inch or more above the flame but it takes FOREVER that way!  So I brought the spoon down really low and close to the flame.  Once it starts to melt and curl - it goes very fast.  The plastic will harden very quickly once you take it away from the heat source.  Then, crack off the handle about an inch or less from the bowl of the spoon.  

My directions said to heat the handle-stump, get it all soft, and then stick the petals of the flower together that way.  I found that the petals didn't hold together very well using that method.  So I ended up using hot glue to put them all together and shape my flower.

Remember?  I said it looked really ugly!

Just keep building until it looks the way you want it to.  You should use a kleenex to wipe off all excess carbon from the candle so the paint will adhere.  Then comes the fun part - you spray paint it with your chosen color!  And all of a sudden it looks great!

Let it dry completely and then hot glue it onto the vase.

I tried it with flowers from my garden, but I think they compete with the flower on the vase.  It would look really nice with a compact green plant, moss, or if I had a small-necked vase I'd put in a single stem.

This was my trial run to work out the kinks.  I have a craft day coming up with some friends and will post the pictures we take that day.  No two flowers are ever alike so it'll be fun to see what each person comes up with. 

 It's a perfect no-fail project!