i created these framed flower art projects about 6 months ago for a tutorial on little light studio. it never quite made it up onto the site, before kayla aimee delivered her precious baby girl at just 26 weeks. she's been devoting her every second to helping her daughter fight for her life. it's an amazing story to follow, and things are looking so good for them right now.
i figured i would go ahead and share my little tutorial here on my blog.
i have had these framed pieces in the girls bathroom for years. eight years, to be exact. it was time for a change. they're cute. but the colors have gotten brighter and funner in their bathroom, as they have gotten older. and i wanted something to match that. the frames are good, solid, wood frames. there are four frames in the set, and they are about 11 inches x 11 inches in size.
i picked out some pattern papers that match the colors in the girls bathroom. the colors here look a little light. they're actually nice, bright shades of turquoise, orange, pink, and green. i choose pretty basic patterns, that wouldn't stand out all that much. i also dug out these older chipboard flowers from fancy pants. they're large flowers, that were a perfect fit for the inside part of each frame.
if you have a regular frame, you would simply open up the backing, and take out the matboard that comes in the frame. these were prints that i had purchased at a store years ago, so they had a paper backing on the frames. i sliced into the paper, and peeled it all off from the edges of the frame. then i got to the staples that hold the matboard in place. i did my best to lift them up carefully, so that i would be able to use them to hold my finished project in place when i was done.
i cut a piece of white cardstock, to fit the center part of my matboard. then i cut my pattern paper to fit the outside part of the matboard. to cut out the center piece of the pattern paper, i just measure how far from the edges i need to cut. so on this, my pattern paper was 10x10 inches. and i needed to go in two inches from each side. so i cut out an 8x8 piece of the pattern paper from the center. then i adhered both the pattern paper and the cardstock to the matboard. measure, trim, and glue for the other three frames :)
next, i picked out four different acrylic paints. one to match each of the patterned papers. i used a foam brush to paint the chipboard flowers. i didn't spend too much time on this. didn't even paint the edges of the flower petals. two coats of paint gave good coverage.
next up, i choose four colors of embroidery floss, to match the chipboard flowers. one shade lighter or darker than your paint works best.
not sure why i keep showing three of the sets. there are four total. lol!
then i simply wrapped the floss around the flower petals, over and over. no need to overthink it, or make it too perfect. just randomly wrap, back and forth, along each petal. until it looks good to your eye. then move on to the next petal. when i was finished, i just taped the end of the floss to the back of the flower. looking back at this pink flower, i should have wrapped it around that center part as well. same with the turquoise flower. oh well.
here's the orange flower.
i think the green flower was my favorite.
after i had wrapped each of the flowers with the floss, i adhered them to the coordinating matboard. i used 3-D squishy pop dots to stick them down, since they're super strong, and sort of mold over all the string to give good coverage.
then i cleaned the glass on each frame, added the matboard, and secured them with the staples in the back of the frame.
the girls bathroom is terrible for taking photos. and small. i tried, but i just couldn't get a good photo of these in the bathroom. but trust me, they're super cute in there. i hung them just like you see here. two on top, and two on the bottom. but i spaced them all about an inch apart.
this was a pretty effortless and fun project. i love when i can re-purpose things around my house, and give them new life.
