Mini Delphiniums On Trellis

I am loving the way this turned out!

Mini Delphiniums on trellis

I made 9 delphinium plants but only used 5 in the end, 3 blue and 2 yellow.  I used two layers of left over foam core for the "ground", cut into that shape (see above),  and glued together.  Then I glued the trellis onto the foam core shape, and added the flowers. It was difficult because they didn't want to stick into the foam properly.  Once I had them in place, I used my glue gun to glue the in place, and put glue all over. Then I shook some of my dried coffee grounds over the still hot glue and used a toothpick and my finger to pat it into place.  After I was satisfied, I glued the trellis and plants onto the patio.

Mini delphiniums on trellis

 I may still outline the "dirt" with little rocks; I'm not sure yet. 

Foam Core miniature bake shop patio

Foam core mini bake shop patio

 Sadie and Michelle love the flowers.  Rufus would like a tree (or his fire hydrant back) to pee on, lol.

Dolls relaxing on patio

I still have to fill the two big stone planters that I made for the front of the patio, plus the window box.  I made 8 more roses today; 4 golden yellow, and 4 white, to go with the 8 red I made earlier.  I can tell I'm learning as I go as the new roses are nicer.  The leaves are nicer too.  I will take photos later.  I can't wait until my leaf paper punches come in the mail.  I ordered the maple on one Ebay today as it was the only one missing from the set I bought on Etsy.  The set on Etsy STILL hasn't been shipped. 

Delphiniums in Progress

I am almost finished with these Delphiniums; woohoo. They've been taking FOREVER, but I also had to take two days off from minis due to being sick.  I don't know what I have; it started with tummy upset and headache, then yesterday I woke up with laryngitis and a super sore throat and that all over achey-flu feeling.  I still feel awful today but decided to work on my minis in hopes they'd distract me.

The tutorial I used for the mini delphiniums  can be found here.

Mini Delphiniums almost finished

I had the flower parts already done, but was stuck on the leaves.  I ordered some mini leaf paper punches but they haven't been shipped yet so I made these leaves using painting tape and wire.  They came out OK but I didn't like the way the wires all looked wound up together, and the green painting tape was too bright so I painted them with my leaf green craft paint.  I like them a lot better now.  I think another layer or two of paint on the stems will help disguise the twisted wires.  If not, I can always try mixing the paint with some glue to thicken it a bit.

Anyway, a few days ago, I prepared a bunch of stems.  I dipped the tips in yellow for other flowers, and for the delphiniums I added those little tubular beads to the wire to make a thicker part.  I think the tutorial called them bugle beads.   I painted them green to match the stem, and think they'd make great cattails if painted brown instead :-).

 I painted some cone shaped coffee filters last week and used the blue and yellow ones for my delphiniums.  I used my mini circle punch and punched a tiny container full of circles.

I used my ball tool (not sure what it's really called, lol) to indent the circles, using a bit of craft foam underneath to help shape them.


Then I glued them to the bead covered portion of the stem, 3 blossoms at a time.

It was fun building them up; I made some taller than the others.

I found a tutorial online, about how to make ivy, and used it to make these leaves.  You can find the tutorial here.

I used this thin wire, and this wide green painters tape.  I put cut pieces of wire, pushed them down onto the sticky portion of the tape, folded the tape so both sides of the wire were covered in tape (see photo below), and drew leaves, then cut them out.

I did two leaves per flower.

Sadie loves her delphiniums.  I'll like them more after the stems get a few more coats of paint.