asimplegirl: Shell Flowers

Hello, it is I, a simple girl. I've discovered that this whole blogging thing is a lot harder than I thought it would be, so I decided that I would post my very first craft tutorial! Here goes nothing...

Shell Flowers

Ok. Let's get started. The materials you will need are:

9 large jingle shells (about the size of a quarter)
4 slightly smaller jingles
3 more jingles that are slightly smaller than the previous 4
2 little baby sized jingles
Non-stick craft square (basically a little rubber square that won't adhere to hot glue)
Hot glue
Floral tape
Sturdy floral wire
1 plastic rose sepal (available online and at some craft stores)
Something to cover your work area (newspaper, a tablecloth, anything really.)

(P.S. find more on jingles at this url:

http://www.edc.uri.edu/restoration/html/gallery/invert/jingle.htm)

First, cover your work area. (I'm feeling lazy so I'm just doing this on paper plates.)

Next, you need to gather your jingles and line them up by size.

Next, pull out your rubber square, and squirt a little glob of hot glue onto it. You probably should wait for the little glob to set for a few seconds so that the shells hold up.

Then, take one of your large jingles by the hinge and stick the blunt end into the edge of the glue.

Put another shell next to it in the same fashion as the previous one.

Continue around with 2 of the other shells.

Here's the tricky part. You will need to place the 5th jingle over the last jingle you laid and under the very first one you laid.

Here is a photo of the flower after I have placed the 5th large shell.

After you do that, you need to grab one of your four slightly smaller jingles, and stick it in front of the larger jingles.

Did the picture help? I hope so. Well, once you do that you need to continue around like that with 2 of the remaining shells and do the same over under thingy.

By now, your glue will most likely be dry. So, you will need to apply glue directly onto the three smaller shells. In order to do that, you have to hold the jingle by the hinge, and put the glue on the blunt end.

Once you have the glue on the shell, place it inside just like you did the previous four. Just place them in the middle like a triangle.

After you're done with that; do the same with the little baby sized jingles and put them across from each other.

After you're done with that and the glue is dry, just peel it off! Simple as that!

Look! A pretty flower! Where did that come from? Now; if you want to learn how to put this on a stem, go on; but you don't have to. You can put a magnet on the back, make a Christmas ornament out of it (the season is right around the corner!), or glue it onto a picture frame or something.

To put a stem on your jingle rose, you are going to need to add a few more petals. First, you need to get your 4 other large jingles.

Then, you need to flip your flower upside down, and put some hot glue on the blunt side of your new shells.

Once you put the glue on the shell, put it on the flower.

Now, do it 3 more times, and be sure to leave a little gap in the middle.

After you've accomplished that, grab your stem wire, (my wire came with a little knot at the end, but you may need to bend your own knot with pliers) and wrap it with the floral tape.

Then, after you wrap your stem, squirt a little glob of glue in that gap in the center, and stick that little knot into the glue.

Once you have put the stem in the glue, (you will need to hold it up) wait a few seconds, and then squirt some more glue on top of that little knot thingy.