Roses

I really need to get this posted.

I had some fun trying out a technique I discovered for making rose buds from polymer clay.
My wife is an unconventional woman, she's not into flowers at all, she can't see the point of having dying vegetation around and saying it looks nice. While that's saved me a fortune at florists over the years, thanks dear, it does limit my options for quicky presents.

Polymer clay roses don't die, so I figured her usual objection to flowers might not stand.

So I made a bunch of roses one evening and came up with two ways to present them.
The technique is really simple.

1. Condition some red clay
2. Roll it out into a long skinny log. Several about 3mm in diameter in my case.
   Don't worry about getting the logs even throughout their length. Slight variations work for you later.
3. With your fingers, squish the logs flat. Slight variations in width work for you later again.
4. I cut bits of florists wire and doubled about 5mm of one end back on itself to give the clay something to hang onto.
   I happened to have florists wire around for armatures for fingers and it's green, I'm making flowers, works for me.
5. Wrap the log around the doubled back bit of the florists wire and cut it off when the diameter is about right.
6. Squish the bottom of the roesbud onto the wire to make it a rosebud shape.
7. Set it aside and repeat until you've used up all of your red clay logs.
8. Bake and you're done.
   

The traditional dozen roses
A little green clay mixed with translucent and rolled thin in the pasta machine to imitate that waxy paper flowers get wrapped in.









And a vase for the rest.
The vase was going to be gold clay swirled through translucent, just for fun, but my wife's favourite colour is blue, so I marbled the translucent gold mix through some blue and made a little vase.
It's all finished in the photo, but I was looking for some little magnets I had to drop into the bottom of the vase to stabilise it when it was on a metal surface like her PC at work.
Eventually I bought some more off Trade-me and the thing clicks snugly onto a metal surface, but only enough to make it resistant to casual knocks. Just what I wanted.









A little polymer clay makes a LOT of roses


And Lynette liked them, so that was good.