POINSETTIAS
During the holidays, my house is always full of foil-wrapped poinsettias. This year, I decided to replicate them in 1:4 scale. I started by painting thick sheets of scrap paper with acrylic paint. Once dry, these sheets were cut into leaves by a Cricut machine. To give the foliage variance, I designed several cutting templates using Adobe Photoshop.
Once cut, I used a thin red marker to draw venation patterns on the green leaves. The leaves were then shaped using the handle of a paintbrush and glued to painted florist wires. I twisted the red leaf-tipped wires around longer wires that would serve as the central stem for each red flower cluster. I then dipped the ends of these central stems in superglue to form a ball on the wire tip. The dried glue balls were then painted gold.
Washed cans made perfect holders for red leaf clusters. Once the stems were trimmed and green leaves were added, I pressed the plants into clay “pots” I had sculpted and painted brown.
To finish the poinsettias, I grouped red leaf clusters in trios and wrapped them with the green leaf-tipped wires. The finished bouquets were then plunged into sculpted clay “pots” and wrapped with aluminum foil I had painted gold.