I
have to admit I was pretty terrified about starting this kit. I have
been looking at this line of plant kits for a couple of years and
have almost purchased them before. I have always talked myself out of
the purchase because I was too worried about the difficultly of
putting the kits together. This year I decided to go for it and buy
not just one but 3 different flower/plant kits. I looked at all
three this last week and decided to go ahead and do the Daffodil kit
since at that point I had a bunch of daffodils in my yard that were
just starting to bloom. I had planned to pick a couple of them to
have for reference while I worked. Unfortunately Mother Nature had
other ideas and with a really fast and hard hail storm wiped all of
my pretty daffodils into a pile of wilted petals and broken leaves.
Since I didn't want to wait until they all bloomed again next year I
decided to just go ahead without the benefit of the real thing in
front of me.
This
kit is a paper laser cut, printed kit with all the parts of the
flowers included. You still need to provide glue and tools.
If
you want to purchase a similar kit here is a link to the website for the lady that makes these. I only see her book on making decorated
tables on her website but her contact information is all there. I am
sure you could email her if you want to purchase some of her plant
kits.
Here
is a list of the tools I used:
Sharp
craft knife
tweezers
locking
tweezers
dental
pick
wooden
skewer
wire
cutters
toothpick
For
glue I used Tombow Aqua glue and a small bit of super glue.
I
have to admit this was probably the most stressful tutorial/demo I
have done in a long time. I was truly worried about how it would turn
out and if I was skilled enough to actually complete the kit. I bet
you know the feeling. You look at the dealer's table at the show and
see all the pretty plants all made up and so pretty. You take a look
at the kits available and while you are standing there in the middle
of the show you feel like this is going to be easy. You think to
yourself “I can do this” and you dream about how nice all these
plants are going to look in your scene.
Then
you get home and the cold cruel reality of fear sets in. You start to
question yourself, “why did I buy this?” you ask. You think about
the money you spent and you look longingly at the pretty picture on
the front of the kit. You know you really want to do this but, you
ask yourself “what if I mess it up??”
Yeah,
I went through all that and more the last couple of weeks. I decided
the best way to get past my own fear and hopefully to get you past
your own fears was for me to just jump in and do one of these kits.
Once I made that decision I was still really worried about messing up
the kit and not having it turn out.
That
was the reason I decided to make up one flower before I did the demo
on camera. I wanted to at least figure out a few things. I am still
very much a beginner at these kits but I hope that you are now brave
enough to try one for yourself.
I
still have two more plant kits: a Tea Rose and an Oriental Lily to do
in the future. I hope to do videos on those too and I really hope
that we all see improvement in how I do with those.
One
thing this kit did for me was to really make me appreciate the
wonderful artists that do make miniature plants and flowers. I am
always blown away at how real some of them can make their plants.
The
big question I guess at this point is will I buy more kits for
plants? I think so but I do want to try kits from different artists
so I can see how different people put their kits together. I really
don't feel like I know enough about the kits to give you an in depth
critic on how well this kit was made.
I
think it was well made. I think the wire in the kit was a bit too
heavy for the laser cuts but that is just my opinion and maybe with
more experience that wouldn't have been a problem at all.
I
would have liked to see some illustrations on the instruction sheet
or the ability to go to a website to see illustrations of how to do
some of the steps. I am not sure if that is something any of the
artists that put the kits together has available or not.
I
do recommend trying some plant kits either from this artist or
another. If you are like me and have never done this it is a great
oppurtunity to learn some new skills and the end result is a plant to
display that I can say “I made that!” So even though my daffodils
are not perfect I am perfectly happy with them and I am looking
forward to learning to make more plants in the future.
The link for the kits 404ed out, can you put it in again? Thank you, Shelly
ReplyDeleteHi Joanne! I am so glad to read what you have posted because I feel the same way!
ReplyDeleteI purchase the Tea Rose kit last year and I continue to look at it unopened, but then I tuck it away again. Fear plays a big part, and the fear of messing up is Very Real, so I am looking forward to seeing you take the plunge and dive into it. What a timely bit of inspiration for all of us kit chickens, Thank You! :))
elizabeth