The Evolution of an Idea -- Part 1

After I finished my first "1001 crane" bouquet, I started looking for another bouquet idea that would also use the same amount of cranes. I knew I didn't want to do roses again, so I chose to do sunflowers. Since it was ultimately supposed to be a sample, and that anyone who ordered it would potentially be the one folding the cranes, I had to make sure that any papers I used would be readily available to the general public.

I designed another cascading bouquet, with two different sizes of sunflowers. The main flowers would be the "regular" sized sunflowers I already made to be sold on the stem. Mini sunflowers would be featured on wire "vines" branching down from the base of the bouquet.

I had created these gold foil sunflowers for the 2006 Holiday Season, and I decided that they would work for this particular bouquet. The "petals" were made from regular gold foil paper, the "center" was made from a textured gold foil paper, called "Hosoyo." I liked the contrast of the two different types of gold, but since the Hosoyo was lighter than the regular gold, it never quite seemed to look right. And I couldn't switch the colors around, because the Hosoyo paper wasn't available in the larger size that was needed for the "petals."

The first change from the original design for the bouquet was for the sunflowers themselves. I decided to go with only one type of gold foil paper, adding a mostly hidden band of green foil cranes so that the center could be distinguished from the petals.

That first alteration made me realize just how different the final product may turn out from my original sketch. Which is why I've decided to document the progress of this project here on the blog.

Next Step: Creating the mini sunflowers on the wire vines.