My Creative Workbook

Christine de Beer - effortless floral craftsman

Peel a Protea flower

Gently remove the green foliage.

Condition the Proteas very well before peeling. Gently remove the green foliage.

Clean Protea flower head.

Clean Protea flower head (or spike)ready to peel.

Gently lift the petals with a nail cuticle pusher.

Start close to the stem and gently lift the outer involucral bracts away from the spike and peel. To make sure the bracts do not get damaged I use a finger nail cuticle pusher.

Peel the tepals and bracts from the Protea.

Continue to remove the bracts working with the natural growth of the terraced inflorescence.

Remove the tepals and bracts in the direction the flower grows.

It gets easier to remove the bracts closer to the florets

Peel away the last of the pink petals.

Peel away the last few bracts

Place the peeled flower head in a test tube to hydrate.

Place a perfect peeled flower head in a test tube to hydrate.

The flower head is almost ready to start the large composite flower.

Continue to remove the bracts from 8 more flowers

Remove the tepals and bracts from a protea to create a large composite flower.

Remove the florets from the last 6 flower heads in the same way. Make sure you remove the florets as one and be careful not to divide stigma, anthers and parianth segment to make it easier to glue the flower heads back.

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Favourite Flowers

Protea

Protea (but each variety also has a common name)

Related Designs

5 January 2011 Protea Composite

To create this huge Protea I took apart nine Protea flower heads and glued the tepals and bracts back on to a polystyrene ball to create a large Protea composite flower that is...

22 March 2017 Biomimicry Demonstration and Workshop at the Floral Trends Design Group, South African Flower Union

Looking at how we emulate nature’s best biological ideas to solve our modern day design problems.

22 March 2017 Biomimicry

A design demonstration and workshop at the Floral Trends Design group in South Africa exploring how we emulate nature’s best biological ideas to solve our modern day design...

22 March 2017 Biomimicry Demonstration and Workshop video

Looking back at the preparations and my Biomimicry design demonstration and workshop at the Floral Trends Design Group in South Africa