Orchid Paper Sculpture

Have you ever heard of paper sculpture? If you Google the term, you'll find that paper sculpture runs from the simple to the extreme, and that paper artists perfect a myriad of techniques to sculpt their projects. It shouldn't have been a surprise for me to learn that QKR Stampede and Eureka Stamps have made beautiful and do-able paper sculpting projects available to us. Deb here today with paper sculpture as the topic for this week's Technique and Tutorial posting.

When you order a digi or rubber paper sculpting image from the choices at QKR or Eureka, you'll also receive a full set of instructions to complete your project. I won't repeat those instructions but, in this short post, I'll tell you what I did outside the instructions.

The Orchid was my selection, and I knew I wanted this beautiful flower to decorate the top of a small gift box. My first step was to choose two patterned cardstock sheets for the box along with a coordinating sheet in a solid color for the flower.

I trimmed my solid sheet to 8 1/2 x 11 inches to fit the printer, and printed the orchid in grey, rather than black, at 4 inches wide.

After cutting out each petal, I painted them with a Mica powder mixture (2 parts Mica, 1 part Binder, 1 part water) with red in the centres fading to a purple iridescent at the ends.

I set aside the petals to dry while I made a simple 4 inch square box and a die cut doily shape. I beaded three head pins (from my jewellery stash) to use for the stamen - looking at it now, I think it's a bit heavy and one probably would have done the trick.

I shaped the flowers with my fingers and the tools pictured. The flowers hadn't totally dried yet, and moisture made the paper more pliable and made for easier shaping. As I glued each piece, I held it in place with a small clip until the glue set.

When the flower was dry, I set it all alone - without ribbon or further embellishment to steal its thunder - on the box top.

I hope you give paper sculpting a try cause it's easier than it first looks and gives beautiful results. I completed this project in less than an hour, even with a bad chest cold hampering my thought processes and pretty much eliminating my patience - lol. I do suggest printing or stamping your image onto a scrap paper first so you can play with the construction process and get to understand how the pieces fit together before working with your good paper.

As always, after you have a good look here, you are welcome to visit my personal blog for more ideas.