How to make a topiary using the kanzashi technique?

Topiary or tree of happiness, according to legend, brings prosperity and prosperity to the house. Kanzashi is Japan's oldest art in silk jewelry making. Topiary made using the kanzashi technique looks gorgeous and can decorate any corner of your home. Of course, when you look at these beautiful flowers, it seems that their production will be extremely difficult, but this is not entirely true. So, where does the creation of your own tree of happiness begin?

Making a tree is a very painstaking business and requires a lot of patience and accuracy. To create flowers, you will need satin ribbons or organza, silk, crepe-satin. Since the fabric used in this technique tends to crumble, the edges will need to be melted, for this you will need to stock up on a lighter, a candle, a soldering iron or a wood burner. Among other things, you will also need: a ruler, tweezers, fabric glue, scissors, sewing needles, pins, multi-colored threads, decorative elements (beads, rhinestones, sequins and other decor).

For the crown of the topiary, you can use newspapers crumpled into a ball and tied with threads, or a foam shape cut out yourself or bought at a craft store. For the trunk of our tree, you can use dry tree branches, sushi sticks, thick wire or other suitable material at hand. Many needlewomen use flower pots as a vase. For very small trees, a cup, glass or an old vase you don't need will be an excellent vase. To fix the topiary inside the vase, it is necessary to add alabaster or plaster of Paris diluted according to the instructions.

First you need to decide what kind of flowers you want to make, it can be roses, asters or other flowers that you like the most. Using the kanzashi technique, you can imitate almost any flower. Let's take a look at some master classes on creating flowers from satin ribbons.

• Roses. To make this flower, we need a satin ribbon about 35 cm long.We take it with its front side facing us and bend the corner outward, from the folded corner we will start twisting the ribbon to form the middle of our rose. Remember to hold on to the next fold, however. So, bending the ribbon, we roll up the whole flower. Do not forget that the lower part of the flower must be fixed, otherwise it will disintegrate. As soon as our tape comes to an end, we need to sew it to strengthen it. As you can see, there is nothing complicated about it.

• Aster bicolor. To create a flower, we cut satin ribbons into strips of 2.5x6 cm.We need 20 white stripes and 22 blue stripes. We fold the strip horizontally, clamping it with tweezers, and cut it obliquely with a small triangle. We fix the tip by melting it. Similarly to this petal, we do the rest. We turn the lower part of the petal on both sides, fix and melt it. We do this on all the petals. We grease the base, a circle of felt, with glue, we also smear each petal at the bottom and glue them in a circle on the base. We do the next row of petals of our aster in the same way, but with a slight offset to the middle and a different color. The third and fourth rows are made in the same way. After gluing the fourth row in the center of the flower, glue a bead or rhinestones.

We make the topiary itself. We wrap the stem of the flower with tape, decorative paper or braid. We glue the base-ball to the trunk of the future flower and begin to attach the flowers to the base as tightly as possible to each other. We take a container for a vase and fill it with diluted alabaster or gypsum, wait for the material to set. We insert a tree into the mixture. We are waiting for it to completely solidify and decorate it with an imitation of grass.

As we already noted above, to decorate the topiary, you can use all kinds of decorative elements: beads, sequins, beautiful buttons or specially purchased decorative insects, such as a butterfly, ladybug or snail. Often coffee beans are used for decoration. In the same way, you can decorate the topiary with sweets.

Asters can be made like this - luxurious needle flowers.

Another great example of rose topiary.

An example of a sunflower tree that even a novice needlewoman can make.

You can make a tree of happiness yourself, with minimal financial costs, as a decor for your own home, or as a gift to relatives or friends.

How to make Astra topiary using the kazansha technique, see the video below.