The Yukon Territory is our most westerly northern territory, and one of the most storied places in North America (I'm thinking of all the Jack London books we read as children). The Yukon's territorial flower is the Fireweed, and every time I see her (anthropomorphizing a plant), I sing to myself "and she listens like her head's on fire" - a sort of raw happy feeling washes over, filled with excitement, adventure and danger, much like the Yukon wilderness itself.
Supplies:
- a thick gauge wire, around 28cm long
- a thinner gauge wire around 13 cm long
- pink felt, and a dark pink/ hot pink/ fuchsia felt
- fabric covered wire - I used both white and green ( you can use bare jewelry wire, or embroidery floss stiffened with mod podge - use what you've got)
- 9 hot pink micro pom poms
- strips of crepe paper in green and white (use strips of paper bags or strips of pink felt as a substitute) If you already have pink crepe paper, just use that and skip the pink acrylic paint
- pink acrylic paint
- glue gun glue
Tools:
- wire cutter
- paint brush
- scissors
- glue gun
1) Cut out your many pieces of felt. there are a LOT of pieces, too many to show in one photo so please excuse the "shorthand" of using multiplications in the image below.
2) Prep your wire: bend your thin gauge wire in half and wrap the ends around the main, thicker wire.
3) Starting at the thin doubled wire end, wrap your green crepe paper strip around like floral tape, pinning in place with glue gun glue where needed. Around the 7cm from the end, switch to the white crepe paper.
4) At this point I painted the wrapped white crepe paper, transitioning and slightly overlapping into the green end. Either way, set this aside for now
5) take your white fabric wrapped wire and cut 15 (!) pieces around 8cm in length and 12 pieces of white fabric covered wire that are 4 cm in length
- 9 of the 8cm wire pieces paint completely pink, set aside (these are for the flower buds)
- for each of the 6 bloomed flowers, take two 4 cm wire pieces, bend in half and attach (by twisting in place) to a 8cm wire piece around 2cm from the top, so all the "stamin" are the same height as below
- paint the stems, up to the part you've added the stamin pink. Paint the tips of the stamin pink as shown below
6) cut an additional 4 pieces at 8cm from green fabric covered wire for the really small buds (yeah how can you tell I'm trying to use up as much as my craft stash before I have to move to another apartment)
7) take all your dark/hot/fuchsia pink circle and oval shaped bud pieces. Attach them with hot glue to the ends of each 8cm piece of wire as shown below. The 9 pink wires are for the larger circle and oval pieces, the 3 green wires are for the smallest circle/ buds.
8) Now for the bloomed flowers: attach 4 of the lighter pink petals on top of each dark pink cross shape. Using the sharp end of embroidery scissors, or a tiny snip, create a hole in the center. Thread you prepared stems through, and attach the stamin at the base to the felt (using a really small drop of hot glue). Set aside.
9) Attach you micro pom poms to the green end of the wrapped wire (from stage 4)
10) Now for the assembly: you will be attaching the buds and flowers - smallest to largest from the top, using (white) crepe paper.
11) Bend the wires on the buds down and into shape. Once the buds and blooms are basically where you want them, paint the white crepe paper pint. Do not continue to adjust the wires while the paint is still wet.
12) once the paint is dry, your Fireweed is complete.
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