Foamiran Poinsettia Step By Step

Afternoon everyone, I decided to write this blog post because every time I post a pic of a card on groups on facebook that has poinsettias on it, people always ask how I make them.  I am, by no means an expert and there are some fantastic facebook groups - foamiran flower lovers being one, where there are amazing flower examples.  For this card I've used some red poinsettias and I'll pop all the details on the blog tomorrow, along with details of how you can get a goody box with 100 glue sticks in my giveaway.

I started making poinsettias with my dies but have found that when I heat or manipulate the foamiran, the centres become so small that it's impossible to put stamens through.

As you can see by the above pic, the one I've heated is in my hand.

So I had a play around until I was happy and drew out a template, where I have kept the centre of the flowers large enough for the stamens to be pulled through.  The template below can be saved and printed out, it should be 3" x 3", easy to do if you have serif craft artist or my craft studio, If your just printing from windows the just choose the nearest pic size.

So I started with a sheet of red foamiran from Foamiran World and it really is a lovely 'true colour' Christmas red, I've drawn around the template, covering the whole sheet.

I then coloured the centres and some edges of the leaves with a yellow oil pastel (quite randomly).

 This foamiran can be manipulated slightly without heat, but I've found the best results by heating.  I put my iron on low (no water, lol).  I then just press the flower against the hot plate (use tweezers if you need to) only for a second or two.

 Then fold the petals in on themselves and give it a twist.  I try and be quite gentle doing this because I'm quite heavy handed and have torn a few.

 Open out the flower.

 Then lightly stretch the petals into the shape you want.

 When your happy with the shape, use a dab of hot glue (off centre) to stick two together, so that the petals are showing on both flowers, then using a poky tool pierce a hole through the centre.