Wonderland Flowers

Just in time for Mother's Day, these Wonderland Flowers bloom year round and don't require watering!  These images show several styles of flowers and you should b cr8iv with the shapes, textures and designs of your flowers, but the directions below will give you a basic idea of how to get started.

Start by making a pinch pot (roll a sphere of clay, push in your thumb, pinch around the sides) that is the general size you want your flower to be.  Scratch the entire inside of the pinch pot bowl with a tool.  Now start making your petals with your extra clay.  You can flatten small slabs of clay and cut them into your petal shape, you can roll coils of clay to create more spiny petals or you can slap small pieces of clay onto the table to stretch them into a petal shape--it's up to you, experiment and see what works best!  Now scratch the backs of each of your  petals and attach them into the pinch pot, layering them around as you go.  You can continue to layer them all the way into the center or you can create a small pinch pot and scratch-to-attach it on upside down to create the center of your flower.  Don't forget to experiment with different textures, sizes and shapes for your flowers. When you're finished building them, you'll need to put a hole in the bottom that is slightly larger than the rod you'll attach later.  I use 3/8th" steel rods for my flowers.  Let your flowers rest in bowls to help them  keep their shape as they dry.  Once you have bisque fired, glazed and glaze fired your pieces, you'll want to attach them to your "stems".  Choose your metal rods and clean them well, they will probably have a greasy residue that will need to be cleaned for your adhesive to stick.  I like to use a  putty epoxy for attaching the flower to the rod. It comes in two parts that you knead together, attach to your piece and it hardens in place.  It can be sanded, drilled and painted, so its a great choice for attaching the flowers to the stems.  I like to make a sphere of the putty and push it onto the tip of the rod, then push that into the hollow space of the flower, then I make a coil of the putty and wrap it around where the two come together and blend it in just like its clay.  Let the putty set up and then you can paint it to match your flowers.  You can make a perennial garden where no two flowers are alike!

!!!B CR8IV!!!