May flowers: buttercup

'chin up, buttercup!'

ever heard that one?

in my last post, i shared info about a May art challenge on Instagram.

i'm not posting a new project there every day,

but i did share my first one on May 2,

and i chose 'buttercup' for the letter 'B' prompt.

this was a new project for me, using materials in my existing stash,

and i had to work out the details as i went -

and now i'm sharing it as a tutorial here on the blog.

when i was finished making my buttercup, i added it to a larger art piece

that i had in mind when i chose this specific flower!

continue reading for my easy tutorial...

the materials:

thin floral wire . scissors  

rectangular yellow file folder stickers . a snip of fuzzy yellow yarn

the process:

i cut five pieces of floral wire @ 6" long.

on each piece, i created a small loop at one end.

to create the petals of the flower, i used some yellow rectangular file label stickers
(i found a whole pack of them at a thrift shop for a dollar!) - 
i placed one sticker on the front side of the loop, and another sticker on the back.

i pressed the stickers together with my fingers,
and then used the pointed end of a wood skewer to press inside the loop.
honestly, if i were to make this again, i'd hot glue the sticker layers together!
they keep peeling apart. grrrrr.

a quick trim with sharp scissors created the rounded petal shape. 

to create the flower, i held all five pieces of wire together, and twisted them in a spiral
all the way down the length of the wire - creating the stem.

next, i bent each petal upward, creating a 'bowl' shape with all five - 
just as you see on a real buttercup.

a very tiny piece of fluffy yellow yarn was simply hot glued into the center of the petals
to create the center of the flower.

once the flower was complete, i created the backdrop:

here's where that 'chin up, buttercup!' phrase comes in...

legend is that if you hold a buttercup flower under your chin

and it glows yellow all over your chin and neck, then you like butter. 

(yeah, sure, i like butter -
when it's mixed with sugar, flour, eggs, and chocolate chips!

i think for me, it's an indication that i love YELLOW!)

i know this is a really old thing (my Grandma did it as a girl in Gilroy, California)

and that phrase was on my mind as i created the flower,

so i made a piece of collage art from old book pages 

mounted on a yellow background.
then i added a wash of warm yellow paint to the neck and chin, as the 'glow'.

the buttercup flower was simply taped on with some white electrical tape,

adding a 3-D element to the piece.
i added the text in my graphics editing program ;) 

and then... well... another buttercup came to mind:

Princess Buttercup!

[any Princess Bride movie fans out there??!]

i embellished the artwork by adding a 'wig' of soft fuzzy yellow yarn. 

and since every princess needs a crown,

i placed my very first 'Original Junk Princess Crown' on her hair.

[admittedly, that hair looks much more like Queen Charlotte's in Bridgerton

than Buttercup's hair in the film...

but we can just call that 'artistic license', right??!!!]

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shared online:

funky junk interiors | new upcycled projects to make #626

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