You guys voted, so I have another tutorial! It lined up perfectly, not only with the project I was working on but with the time of year. Celebrate spring with a fun cherry blossom project! This blog post goes through the technique I use to make a flower. You can adapt it as you need to for your projects.

Supplies:

• Light pink polymer clay
• Dark pink polymer clay
• Roller (or pasta machine)
• Circular cutter or exacto knife
• Tools for petal texture (ball point, silicone, needle, etc.)

Step 1: Make the gradient

To give the cherry blossom that characteristic dark pink center, I like to create a gradient that I’ll then cut the petal from.

I thought about doing my own tutorial for a gradient, but there are lots online, so I highly encourage you to check out YouTube for a more in depth process! They are ones I followed, and I don’t really have anything to add to the process.

Once you’re happy with how it looks, make sure you leave it as a flat sheet of clay.

Step 2: Cut out your petal

Once you have your desired gradient, we’re ready to start cutting out our shapes. I had circular cutters, so I used that to cut out my five petals.

If you don’t have a circular cutter, don’t fret! You can use an exacto knife or something similar. Don’t worry about keeping it perfectly circular either; I’m using the cutter mainly to keep each petal roughly the same size. We’ll be reshaping it next.

Step 3: Shaping the petals

Now you’ll want to take your circles and shape them into petals. Cherry blossoms are kind of diamond shaped. I pinched the darker end into the longer part of the diamond while leaving the corners rounded. Then I turned it around and worked on the lighter end, making sure it’s a nice rounder edge.

Basically, you’re going for this shape:

You might have mashed up your petal in the shaping process, so I like to place it onto my work surface, push it flat, and use my fingernails to make sure my petal keeps its diamond shape.

Step 4: Time for the cherry blossom

We’re ready to make the flower! The skinnier part of the petal (the darker side) will be our middle. The five petals should fit nicely around each other.

I recommend using some TLS in between each petal for extra durability after baking.

I filled the hole in the flower with the darker clay and then added little balls of clay onto the center.

Step 5: Finishing the flower

Once my cherry blossom was assembled, I went back and added some texture to make the petals more “petaly.” I did this by running my ball tool along the petals, but you could use a combination of ball, needle, and silicone tools to create different texture.

And there we have it! You can change the size of the flower by changing the size of the petals. Bake according to package instructions once you’re happy with flower.

I went back and added some gold microbeads (I recently got them and wanted an excuse to try them out). I didn’t really arrange them with purpose so I think it ended up looking a little weird, but maybe if I would have had only the microbeads without the pink balls in the center, it would be better. Here’s what it looked like when baked:

The dragon I used this technique for is actually a remake of one I did about two years ago.

The petals for that one were less cherry blossom shaped, so that was an update I made to this newer dragon.