What you will need to complete the simple flower.

· A stick to carve. ( I like to use green wood for this project)

· A good Sharp carving knife ( I recommend the Mora 106 I find it really comfortable in the hand and that it cuts with ease when doing thicker petals or I like to use the Flexcut KN13 for a thinner petal.)

· A drill and small drill bit.

· Good wood glue.( I recommend using Gorilla Glue, I use this for all my glue ups and have never experienced any issues.

· Food colouring.(Optional)

The process.

Choosing a stick to carve.

You will need to collect a stick to start the carving process a few things to consider when choosing the stick you will carve are:

· Length you want to find a stick that is long enough for you to rest under your arm when carving. I suggest this so you have extra control over the stick when cutting in the petals.

· Width you will need a stick that is around 3cm thick.

· When you choose your stick you need to be making sure that the piece doesn’t have any knots, if you have many knots it will make it difficult for you to carve the petals.

· Ideally the wood you select will still be green it makes it easier to work with and easier to shape your finished petals.

Stripping the bark from the stick.

To begin the stripping of the bark you will need to use your knife, you should use extreme caution using your knife. The blade should be very sharp to make the cuts easier a properly sharpened knife should just glide through the bark almost effortlessly. Never have the blade of your knife facing towards you it should always be pointing away and make sure your fingers on the hand holding the stick are well out of the way.

I would usually strip the bark from around 20 cm up the stick. Just light strokes are required you only want to really be taking away the bark from the stick.

When you have something that looks like the picture above you are ready to move to the next step.

Rounding over the end of the stick.

You will need to round over the end of the stick, start cutting around about 1.5 cm from the end. You will need to leave part for the end flat for later. So just work on taking the corners off and rounding it off all the way around the stick. You can also at this point use the end of your knife or drill with a small drill bit to make a small hole in the end of the stick for attaching late to a steam.

Carving the petals in.

To carve the petals you should again make sure you are only cutting away from your body, start about 6 cm up the stick and cut a small continuous cut towards the end stopping around 2 cm from the end and bending the cut back as shown in the pictures above. This cut should be continuous gentle stoke if you press to hard you will cut off the petal and if you stop and start you won’t have a long petal it will have notches in it. It is possible to cut through knots just be careful as when you apply more force to get through the knot you will need to reduce the amount of force to complete the cut otherwise you will cut the petal off.

Once you have carefully cut the first row of petals in you can stop and shape them slightly if you desire. The rest of the carving process will now be easier that the first row is cut in as they act as a stop cut. When you are cutting the rest of the petals in be careful not to apply too much pressure to your cut as you could still easily take off your fist row of petals. Continue cutting in petals around the stick working down to where you stopped with the cuts on the first row. You will notice the stick get thinner at this point until it looks something like the image below.

Now holding the part you rounded off twist until it detaches itself from the stick. Well done you have carved your first flower!

Drill a hold into the centre of your flower or use a knife then you will need a small twig that is strong to attach your flower to. Cut your twig to a point and add some wood glue too to the end of the twig you had cut. Insert the twig into your flower pushing firmly in.

Your flower should now look like the picture above. Well done you have completed your first flower just let it dry for the recommended amount of time on your glue and give it to your loved one, they will be amazed at how life like it looks.

Carving petals in to the stem gives the flower an even more professional look and is easily achieved by cutting in to the steam.

Coloring your flowers.

I would recommend using food colouring to colour your flowers. Simply mix food colouring into some water and put it in a spray bottle, then spray your flower the more food colouring the brighter the colour. Over time the colour will fade if use food coloring but you can re-color at any time to revive it.