Polymer clay Plumeria Flower tutorial (re-made!)

Real Plumeria flowers (I didn't make these lol)

So I've decided to re-make my tutorial on how to make Plumeria flowers! My first plumeria flower tutorial looks a bit messy to me now :( 

Here goes, then! You will need: clay (in one colour), a craft knife or blade, a teaspoon (that you will only use for clay) and chalk (or acrylic paint). You could also add a scent to make it smell all flowery and realistic.

1. First you need to condition your clay. You can either use your fingers, a pasta machine or a rolling pin. This part is probably the most important. Tip: If you're using white or light coloured clay, try not to touch it as much as you can. This will help keep the clay as clean as possible.

Optional: if you want, you can add a scent at this point. Just mix it in to the clay.

2. Roll out the clay and cut in to 5-6 pieces. Try to make them as equal as you can, but don't worry too much if some of the pieces are slightly bigger/smaller. Flowers don't all have perfect petals!

Here's pictures of how I did it: first I rolled it out, then cut it, and rolled each piece in to a ball.

3. Now for the fun part! Well, if you count squishing clay with a spoon as fun, at least.

This part is critical for giving the petals their shape! You have to squish the ball down and use the spoon to give it it's shape. When you pull it off of the back of the spoon, it will have a curved shape like the real petals. Do this with each individual ball.  Tip: if you don't have a teaspoon available (possibly because you need them for food), you can use your fingers and a paint brush. It's a little harder, but it can be done like that.

4. Now what you need to do is arrange the petals in to a flower shape. Use TLS or the Studio by Sculpey Bake & Bond Adhesive to stick the petals together.

5. This is optional, but I'll assume most people won't want to leave this bit out. You can either use chalk to add the second colour or acrylic paint (but you have to bake it first if using paint). Start by adding the colour in the centre, then use your brush to push it out. You can put in an eye pin now if you want.

Now blogger is annoying me... It won't let me add my picture how I want it to... lol. Anyway, I made a little mistake with that one, and used a brush I hadn't cleaned properly. So it went all sorts of crazy colours! All is not lost though - I can still paint it now it's baked! I'll add the picture later :D

Here's a picture of one I made a while ago (sorry for bad quality). I used purple chalk, then painted over the backs of the petals with white acrylic paint, so you can do something like that if you want!

Polymer Clay Rose Tutorial

There are already a lot of polymer clay rose tutorials on the internet, but I'd like to share mine. I don't use any cookie cutters, just polymer clay and a craft knife/blade. When it's finished, you can add glitter glue to the petals so it has sparkle like the black ones on the picture.

You'll be rolling out the clay a lot, so you don't have to condition it that much :) If you have a pasta machine, it'll make it loads more easier, but I don't have one so I'm just going to roll it out really thin.







First, you need to either use a pasta machine or rolling pin to roll it out really thin. Don't cut the ends or anything so it's straight, leave it rounded at the ends so it adds to the effect. Now you need to use your fingers to roll the end inwards, like in the picture. While you do this, you need to pinch the end slightly so it makes a cone shape. This is the centre of the rose.

 After that, you need to cut that part off. Curl the top part of it (the part you didn't pinch) outward so it looks more like the petals of the rose.

Sorry it's blurred :(

Now you've made the centre, you need to make the rose petals to go around it.

There should be some clay left over from the first step. Cut it in to little strips and roll them in to equally sized balls. You need to then roll these out in to thin, long oval shapes. Each one will make two petals, so I suggest you only make one at a time. Now cut it in half.

You need to attach them to the centre like this:

I have no idea what happened to the edge of this picture...

Remember to curl the petals out at an angle so it looks more effective :)

As you add the petals, you'll find that the rose starts to take it's shape. Eventually, you'll get this:

You need to cut the end off (like in the third picture), then you're done :)

Tips

You can try making this in lots of different colours, using different colour glitter to 'glaze' it. Black looks really cool with red glitter :D I've even made a glow in the dark one, using the Fimo 'Nightglow' clay. They look awesome to use as jewellery, because it has a flat back you can make them in to a pair of cute stud earrings, you can put them on millefiori style pendants. You can add an eye pin to make it in to a charm. You could also use them for deco den, if that's what you're in to :).

You can put rhinestones on the petals too, I haven't tried it on the roses yet, but it looked cool on the plumeria flowers :)

Polymer clay Plumeria Flower tutorial

EDIT!!!!: This tutorial is now out of date! I've re-made this tutorial. You can find the up to date version here.

These flowers are super easy to make. All you need is some clay in one colour for the petals, a craft knife/blade, colourful chalk pastels, a paint brush and a teaspoon (preferably one you don't need for food!).






Shaping the petals 

You'll want to start by rolling out the clay. You don't need to use bright pink clay, of course, but I've made them in a lot of other colours already.




Cut the clay in to five pieces, they don't have to be the exact same size, but make sure they're pretty much the same size. Now roll them in to little balls, they don't all have to be exact.

Now for the teaspoon :D You can use a dessert spoon if you're making a bigger flower, but again, make sure you don't need it for food!!!
Use it to squash down the clay and use your fingers to shape it in to a petal.

Note that it doesn't have to be a perfect petal shape, no flower is perfect!


Now you should have this shape :) You need to repeat it on all of the other petals. If you want, you can make a six petal flower or a four petal flower. Just make more petals now :D You can make as much as you like, but I like the five petal flowers the best.

If this technique isn't working for you, you can get petal shaped cookie cutters. Just roll out the clay and cut out your petals. Shape them and you'll get a similar effect. I don't use cookie cutters for clay though... I see it as cheating, to be honest :)













Adding another colour

You could just put the petals together to make the flower shape now if you want, but I like to use chalk to add another colour. You could also bake your flower now, then use acrylic paints. However, they leave a shine and flowers aren't shiny!

Take a scrap piece of paper and get out your piece of chalk and craft knife/blade.

Use your craft knife to scrape some chalk on to the bottom of the petal (the narrower part)

Now use your paint brush to spread the chalk so that you get a gradient effect.

Repeat on all the petals.

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Making the flower shape

Now for the easy part :)

You can add some TLS/liquid clay to help the petals stick together.

Now you need to lay the petals over each other so you get the plumeria flower shape....







You could add a little more chalk, or add another colour, at this point. You could also add an eye pin (depending on what you're going to use it as). If you want to add one, put a little scrap clay on the back and put your eye pin through that. DON'T put it through one of the petals!

Now bake according to the instructions on the pack. I used Fimo clay, so I baked it for 15 minutes as it's only a thin piece of clay. As for the temperature, I live in the UK  and have a gas oven, so my oven doesn't use the same temperature as the US ones... I cook mine on gas mark 1/2 or 1.

Suggestions...

I've made these in lots of colours. The most effective so far that I've made are using white clay. I wanted to try it with the pink, this time! Try white clay with blue, pink or yellow chalk. If you want, use two colours. I also tried yellow clay with red chalk, and that came out really well.

Also, you could add little rhinestones, like on this one. They look a little like water droplets ;)

That's all, then :) My first tutorial lol XD! Next time, I'll try and make a shorter tutorial, but I wanted to get lots and lots of detail in.

You can find my new updated tutorial here.