Topiary

A favorite project of mine.

I had seen this at a scrap booking night back in May (or maybe the end of April) 2011.

It was an example from a magazine.

The gal was making them for Mother's Day gifts.

I knew I wouldn't make it for Mother's Day but I did start gathering the information and supplies necessary to complete the project.

What you'll need:

• Cuttlebug or Sizzix die cutting/embossing machine

• Sizzix Bigz Die, 3-D Flowers

 •Double sided 12"x12" paper cut into quarters

(Roughly 5 pages of 3 different coordinating patterns)

I cut 8 "flowers" out of one 12"x12" sheet and used almost 100 "flowers" so my math says that you'll need 12.5 pieces of 12"x12" paper cut into 6"x6" squares:

(you can buy double sided paper at Archivers stores or in pads at JoAnn or Michael's - it's cheaper to buy a pad than individual sheets)

• Paper Flower rolling tool (this is a must, you can try without it but good luck)

• Pearl headed quilting pins, approx 100/topiary I bought the Dritz brand  (Wal-Mart had the best deal)

• 1/3" dowel cut down to approximately 12" lenghts

• metal pail

• Floral foam cut to pail shape to push dowel into, make sure it fits tightly and then you don't need to glue it or anything. I bought green floral foam rectangles and just trimmed down the corners to fit the pail which I found in the dollar section at Target.

• 4" foam ball

............................................

 5 months later I started putting the project together

Simply roll all flowers with flower roller by placing the outer tail of the die cut spiral into the slotted end of the roller and rolling it up then removing it. Pin in random order of size and color into styrofoam ball. Leave just enought room for a dowel before you finish. Place one end of the dowel into the foam ball and the other into the floral foam. I cut a 3" circle with a 1/3" circle in the middle and slipped it on the dowel before inserting it into the floral foam to cover it up. 

Final result:

=beautiful.

The project took me around 6 hours to complete. I found it easy. There is a lot of rolling but I was able to complete it sitting in bed watching TV or next to my hubby on the couch.