Victorian Beading - Today's Flower

I love the colors on this one, but I didn't achieve the effect I was going for, which was a lacy, open look to the edges of the petals. A fellow artisan suggested the lacy, open look might succeed with a lighter-coloured flower, so I'll try that next.

The "space" you see between the petals is wire weaving where the petals were stitched together using wire. I wove it through the loops at the end of each bead row, joining the petals together.

These actually look lovely under low lights or candlelight because of the Swarovski Crystals in them.

Front View:

Side View:

And both flowers together: (can you tell I'm proud of them?) For a first try at this, I AM pretty proud. Now I have to get REALLY good at it.

Victorian Beaded Flower - Using the Tutorial I posted here

I followed the tutorial I have posted here and just added my own touches. I didn't make the petals tapered on both ends, because I wanted to make a tulip. I made 7 petals and then "stitched" them into a cup-shape with wire. The stamens and pistils are Swarovski Crystals on wire and then fed down through the center of the flower and wrapped around the top of the stem (which was created by the leftover wires.

I modified the tutorial instructions a bit. Since my wires ended at the wide end and I wanted them ending at the narrow end, I just wove them down the sides of each petal. I then brought all the petals together by threading a wire through the bottom bead of each petal, making sure all the other wires were facing the outside of the flower and downward, pulling it tight and then wrapping it around the remaining wires, thus forming a "stem."

I "stitched" each petal to it's neighbor using wire, making sure I ended at the bottom, and secured those wires at the top of the "stem."

This is stupidly simple. Seriously. Each petal took me less than 10 minutes. The hardest part was stitching the last petal into place, since I was working in such a small area.

Try the tutorial. It's easy and it WORKS.

Now the photos:

Side View:

Front View: