Buds and leaves

I figured if I was going to show you some pictures I may as well show you as many steps as I can. Just in case someone else wants to try and make some as well.

This is paper covered wire. If you know anything about wire it is 30 gauge...very thin. I have never seen wire like this in stores, I actually bought this from Era Pearce...an amazing miniature flower maker. You can see her website here.

The wire is dipped into Sobo glue. A white glue but much runnier than tacky glue. I leave it to almost dry then shape it with the tips of my fingers. Once dry I then dip it into the color paint I want for the buds. You can see the bottom row has been painted.

How many dips into glue and paint depends on how big I want the buds to be. Some only need 1 dip, others many.

Do you like my temporary drying rack...bamboo sticks balanced between open drawers....I do hope we don't get an earthquake today...those things rattle like crazy and I don't much fancy looking through the carpet for all of those.

And next come the leaves. This one is shown on the end of a regular scalpel blade.

You can't buy paper punches this small so these all have to be cut by hand

So now I have to go cut many, many leaves. Lucky for me these don't need to be veined :-)

Hopefully now you understand why I said this wouldn't be a quick challenge.