Mini Tulips: First Post

I was helping my sister was clean out her garage the other day and she found a cute little basket that she was going to throw away.  I have two problems, one, I can think of ways to use just about anything someone tosses away, and two, I'm a pack rat.  So of course I knew how to use the basket and I took it off of her hands.  However, I'm going to give it right back to her... with a few improvements.

I've only posted two pictures of French Beaded Flowers, and those were finished.  Now you'll get to see one from start to finish.

First off, my materials:

This is pretty much everything I need to make beaded flowers.  Upper left corner is a tape measure for when I need a certain wire length or length of beads.  Upper right is a simple pair of wire cutters.  Lower left is a hank of beads, this is how I get most of my seed beads.  They are pre-threaded on string in about 18" long strands, obviously I use more than one color for each project.  I transfer the beads from the thread onto wire, the next two items going right.  The white circle is a spool of blue Artistic Wire, the next is a paddle of green floral wire.  Finally, a pair of hemostats.  I usually like to have at least two, but currently I only have one set on me.  The only "major" material I'm missing in the picture is the floral tape.

Now, let's get started.  I usually make all the parts first then assemble.

I don't really remember how big the little basket is, so I just made 5 of each color tulip.  These are made by twisting the wire into "continuous loops".  For more information go here.

Of course the tulips need their stamens, that's above.

The pattern I was using said to have two leaves per flower.  I just decided to make 40 leaves... they were easy to make...  I think I might have made too much.  They're in piles of 5 to help me keep count.

Here I added the stamens to the tulips, above, with a close-up of the three different colors, below.

Just to give you an idea of the size of these, I cannot fit my pinky into the cup of the tulips.  I'll try to make sure I have something in the final picture to give you a sense of size when it's done.  I'm making this for my sister's birthday this Sunday, so I should be finishing this up Friday.  I'm going to be with her all day tomorrow, so I won't have a chance to work on it, instead I'm going to work on some mini roses for Mother's day.  Actually it's almost 1am, I guess it is "tomorrow".

Project Stats:
Pattern: Mini Tulips
Flower Design: Dalene Kelly
Arrangement Design: Me
Started: April 24, 2013
Beads: 11/0 Czech Seed Beads
Wire: 26 ga. floral wire and Artistic Wire