Handcrafted Forever Spring Crocuses

A sure sign of the arrival of spring is seeing the crocuses - poking their way up through dead fallen leaves, faded mulch or even late fallen snow. It's always a welcome sight in garden beds and landscapes.  And I love seeing the low growing, purplish cup shaped flowers suddenly appear after what seems like a long winters night, but unfortunately their blooms don't last long.

So, I'm joining a wonderful group of creative Hometalk bloggers to #DIY MY Spring . . .

and as my project, make handcrafted forever crocuses out of foam sheet paper in a natural setting. #DIYMySpring

Materials Used:

Foam sheet paper

Crocus pattern - cardstock/cardboard

Skewer stick/pencil

Chalk pastels

Scissors

Acrylic paint

Smooth surface electric griddle/iron

Faux stamen

Hot glue gun

Floral wire stems

Cookie or lollipop sticks (hollow center)

Floral foam

Dried Moss/mulch

Here's how:
 Cut out a crocus petal pattern from cardstock or cardboard and trace the pattern on a foam sheet using a skewer stick. You will need six petals per flower. Cut out the petals.

I love crocuses that are shaded with different hues of purple and white, so I used purple and white foam sheets and highlighted the petals with purple chalk pastels.

Next, I placed the petals on a hot smooth griddle (or iron) for a about 6 or 7 seconds to curve the petals.

To make the flowers, I hot glued faux stamens to the tip of floral stems (cut in thirds)

And then started gluing on the six petals, one at a time, around the stem and stamen.

After all the petals were glued on, I cut a cookie stick in half, painted it green and then inserted the wire stem into the stick to mimic the wider stems of crocuses.
I cut "leaves" from green foam and used green acrylic paint to shade. Then I hot glued the leaves to the stems.

To display the crocuses, I glued on pieces of floral foam to cardboard and . . .

 covered it with dried moss and mulch.

And then had fun inserting crocuses in the moss and mulch for an awesome spring display!

First signs of Spring!

I think these are awesome!   

 Be sure to check-out the link up below:
Happy Crafting & #DIYMySpring!!!

 

An InLinkz Link-up