Glitterfest Magnolias

For this week's paper flower, I was inspired by a wreath I saw on Funky Junk Interior's November 28 blog post.  It was a twig wreath made with brown paper and music sheets.   I decided to add some copper glitter and some sparkly beads in the center to add a contrast of rustic and shine.  These could be attached to a wreath or a copper wire to make a garland, or, of course, the way I did them they could be gift box adornments especially if you wrapped your package in brown mailing paper.  Those are just a few possibilities.

 I started with some old sheet music that had a nice yellowish cast from age, but it wasn't as brown as I wanted it to be.  So I brewed some hot tea and dipped my sheet music pieces in it in a shallow cookie sheet.  You can see my flower pattern is very primitive.  The sheet music petal is approximately 5 in. wide  by 3 3/4 in.   I used the same pattern piece I used on the Glitterfest Roses I posted on November 22 only this time I rimmed the petals in copper glitter instead of silver, and I used sheet music instead of book pages.

To dry the petals I hung pant hangers from a chandelier and ran string down with clothespins and they dried over the bathtub within a half hour.

For the backs of the flowers I cut cardboard circles about 3 inches and then cardboard circles about half that size for the flower centers.   I cut two sizes of flower petals, one for the music sheets and one for the back petals.  These I cut out of brown shopping bags and I made these petals a little larger but in the same shape.  As you can see in the following photo, I used tissue paper garland and a decorative candle ring with beads on it.  I used these for the center of the flowers.  I used the same technique for my Poinsettias From the Page post on November 6.

Now that everything is cut out, I took my brown bag pieces and scrunched the base of the petal and glued four petals on the 3 inch cardboard circles I had cut out.  Try to overlap the petals as you go around so you don't have empty spacing.  I used a glue gun to glue them down.  The brown grocery bags are very stiff so be patient in letting your glue set up.  I had to use a wooden skewer to hold the glued area down so as not to burn myself with the hot glue.

The brown bags are VERY STIFF.  Because of this they were a little hard to work with.  If you want a less stiff petal, use brown mailing paper.  It is probably easier to work with and will give you the same coloration.

Next I took three of the music sheet petals and scrunched the bottom of the petal and glued them in place trying to overlap the petals with the bottom layer.  Then I used Tacky Glue to glue the tissue paper garland on the center of the flowers.  This is the smaller piece of cardboard.  You can purchase tissue paper garland on Etsy.  I always get the ivory or cream color.  This particular garland had some cellophane mixed with it to give it a shinier look.  Then I took my beaded candle ring and snipped off the little beaded components one sprig at a time.  One sprig had about 20 little beads on it.  If you can't find something like this, go to your local Michael's or Joann's and find the sprigs with complementary colors and take them apart to add a little color to the center. I used a glue gun to attach the sprigs to my flower center. 

Once the center piece was done, I used the glue gun to glue the flower center into the flowers.  My photos of this part did not come out well enough to include in this post, but I know you crafters can figure this out.  Like I said, refer to my other flower posts if you are confused by this step.  The following photo is the finished product.  If you like these projects, please subscribe to my blog.  I have lots of great ideas and love to post the tutorials.  Thanks for visiting.