Christine de Beer - effortless floral craftsman
Spiral rattan and skeleton leaf bee
- 12 June 2013
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Soak the rattan in warm water
For the bee-body
See the Tutorial below for a more detailed look and curling spiral cages with wire instead of rattan.
Fold the one end at a sharp angle
Roll half of the length of rattan
Secure the curl with a butterfly hair-clip
See Tutorial below for more details on how to use the butterfly hair clips
Start to roll the other end of the rattan
Continue to roll the rattan until the one end slips over the other.
Secure the rattan spirals with butterfly hair clips. Set aside to dry completely. This will set the spiral curls in the rattan.
For the head
Knot a length of rattan
Thread one dangling leg of the rattan knot back through the knot to create feelers
Curl the feelers and set aside to dry
Cut the feelers short
For the wings
Make and bleach a few skeleton leaves (see Tutorial below)
Assembling the bee
Loosen the clips...
Cut the dangling rattan ends short and gently pull the curl to spiral out
Pull out the other side into a spiral bee body
Glue the head and feelers on to the spiral bee body
Snip and glue on a few rattan legs
Glue in the skeleton leaf wings
Special Design Note: Whenever you add a tiny animal or critter in a design make sure to have a good look at its "body language". It should look absolutely thrilled to be in the design and never desperate to escape.
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Tutorials
Butterfly hair clips are the perfect little claws to help you hold tiny items in place while you wait for glue to dry
The cage spirals to form a basket that wrap around the plump ripe berries (or you can slip in a flower) to hang as connections between the twigs.
Made from dried cherry twigs and a skeleton leaf.
Remove the pulp from leaves so that only the vain framework remain
Related Designs
Barely there skeleton blossoms with Eucalyptus eyes for my Halloween design... Oh! and a Willow Paddle, which probably should have been the main Tutorial... but... well...