All About Sunflowers!

Sunflowers start sprouting up mid to late summer and continue to be a staple all through the fall! We have quite a few sola wood flower styles that are great to create sunflowers. Below, we will break down which sola flower we used and how to turn them into the perfect traditional and non-traditional sunflowers.

Traditional Varieties:

OYL Flower: Frida

Painting Technique: Dip Dye.

• Use the dip dye method and dip the entire flower (the thistle in the center should repel the paint). We used Oh You're Lovely wood flower dye "Summer Yellow".

OYL Flower: Sundance

Painting Technique: Dip Dye and Hand Paint.

• Use the dip dye method to get your flower fully covered in your yellow paint (for this flower, we used craft smart "Mustard Yellow"). Once the flower is mostly or fully dry, use a paintbrush to apply brown paint* to the center.
• Since the centers of these flowers are longer and a little trickier to paint, we suggest adding a small amount of water to your brown paint so it is able to easily slide down the center spikey part towards the center of the flower.

OYL Flower: Quincy

Painting Technique: Dip Dye and Hand Paint.

• Use the dip dye method to get your flower fully covered in your yellow paint (for this flower, we used craft smart "Dark Yellow"). Once the flower is mostly or fully dry, use a paintbrush to apply brown paint* to the center.
• This flower does have some sola skin on the center section so you will want to use just paint (no water) for full coverage when painting the center.

OYL Flower: Wild Double Daisy

Painting Technique: Dip Dye and Hand Paint.

• Use the dip dye method to get your flower fully covered in your yellow paint (for this flower, we used Oh You're Lovely wood flower dye "Summer Yellow"). Once the flower is mostly or fully dry, use a paintbrush to apply brown paint* to the center

OYL Flower: Sunflower (2.5" & 3")

Painting Technique: Dip Dye and Hand Paint.

• You can either use the dip dye method and dip the entire flower (the thistle in the center should repel the paint)
  OR
• Use the spin method to add your yellow (for this flower, we used craft smart "Mustard Yellow"). Mix your yellow paint with water/glycerine in one container. While holding the center thistle of the flower, turn it on its side and dip in the paint mixture. Spin the flower until every side has paint on it all the way up to the thistle. 
• While the flower is still damp, use a paintbrush to apply the orange paint (craft smart "Dark Orange") around the thistle. Take a spray bottle containing a water/glycerin mixture and spritz the flower. This will help the color to diffuse out from the center which results in a more natural blend.

OYL Flower: Charlotte

Painting Technique: Dip Dye and Hand Paint.

• Use the dip dye method for your base yellow coloring (craft smart "Dark Yellow"). While the flower is damp but not soaked (give them around 30-45 minutes of drying time), hand paint the outside of the thistle and the inner creases of the petals with burgundy paint (we used FolkArt "Berry Wine"). Spritz with your water/glycerin mixture so the darker color blends out from the center and creases. 

OYL Flower: Papaver

Painting Technique: Dip Dye and Hand Paint.

• Use the dip dye method for your base yellow coloring (OYL "Summer Yellow"). While the flower is damp but not soaked (give them around 30-45 minutes of drying time), hand paint the outside of the thistle and the inner creases of the petals with paint (we used OYL "Peach Bliss" mixed with "Cherry"). Spritz with your water/glycerin mixture so the darker color blends out from the center and creases. 

OYL Flower: Shasta (left) and Sunshine (right)

Painting Technique: Dip Dye and Hand Paint.

• Use the dip dye method to get your flower fully covered in your yellow paint (for these flowers, we used craft smart "Pale Yellow"). 

• Once the flower is mostly or fully dry, use a paintbrush to apply brown paint* to the center.
• One thing to note - I changed the color of the Sunshine flower by re-dipping it in craft smart "Dark Yellow" as I liked the look of the bark edges with a darker yellow more!

Large Sunflowers (Flower Morph):

OYL Flower: Mystic Moon and Chrysanthemum (you can also use a Zinny or Marigold for the center section!)

Painting Technique: Dip Dye

Flower Morphing Technique: Sometimes the flower you want to replicate takes a little bit of extra craftiness. The mystic moon has the perfect size and shape to create an XL sunflower but the petals are too round. To create the right petal shape, first wet them (I used a spray bottle of water) and then trim a point on the edge of the petals with a small scissor (haircutting scissors worked really well for this!).

Cut out the stamen (top right pic) so you can add a different flower for the center.

Next, cut off the petals from a second mystic moon and give them the same pointy shape. Once those are finished, place them into the creases to fill out the sunflower shape.

One thing to note - you may want to dye the mystic moon and single flower petals before gluing the petals in. That will ensure you get full color throughout without the glue repelling the paint color.

Sunflowers have a center that seems to almost come out of the flower. To create that effect, glue in a chrysanthemum!

Teddy Sunflowers:

OYL Flower: Spider Mum

Painting Technique: Dip Dye and Hand Paint.

First thing to note about our spider mums - they come in a plastic bag with a rubber band wrapped around them because they are a tight ball of small petals. They are unlike our other flowers in that sense but they are just as easy to work with! 

To open them up you can either:

• Use a spray bottle with a water/glycerin mix inside (8 parts water to 1 part glycerin) and spritz down the flower. Gently pull back the layers of petals from the center to open up the flower. Re-spritz as needed to ensure minimal petal tearing.
  OR
• Fluff them out as you are dip dyeing them in your paint/water mixture.

To paint them as teddy sunflowers:

• Use the dip dye method to get your flower fully covered in your yellow paint (for these flowers, we used OYL "Summer Yellow").

• Once the flower is mostly or fully dry, use a paintbrush to apply paint to the center. For this coloring, we mixed a little of the OYL "Buttercup" into OYL "Watermelon" paint and added a small amount of water.

White Sunflowers:

OYL Flower: Daisy

Painting Technique: Hand Paint.

• Top Left Picture - raw 1.5" daisy
• Top Right Picture - add a small dab of green paint to the center of the flower. For this, we first added Apple Barrel "Marsh Green" and then lightened it up a bit by adding Apple Barrel "Lime Tree" directly on top while the original paint was still wet. This helped them blend together.
• Bottom Left Picture - add yellow paint (craft smart "Mustard Yellow") all around the green center. You want to fill the rest of the flower center but still being careful not to get the paint onto the actual petals. 
• Bottom Right Picture - while the yellow paint is still wet, add a layer of orange paint (craft smart "Burnt Orange") on top of the yellow but only in a ring around the green center. Next, spritz the center with your water/glycerin mixture and let the yellow spread from the center out towards the edges of petals. The hint of yellow on the petals changes them from looking like daisies to being white sunflowers!

 Non-Traditional Color Sunflowers:

OYL Flower: Daisy

Painting Technique: Dip Dye and Hand Paint.

• Use the dip dye method to get your flower fully covered in your paint (for this flower, we used craft smart "Coral Reef"). Once the flower is mostly or fully dry, use a paintbrush to apply brown paint* to the center.

OYL Flower: Sunflower (2.5" & 3")

Painting Technique: Dip Dye and Hand Paint.

• Use the dip dye method to get your flower fully covered in your yellow paint (for this flower, we used craft smart "Mustard Yellow"). 
• While the flower is damp but not soaked (give them around 30-45 minutes of drying time), hand paint a ring around the petals with burgundy paint (we used FolkArt "Berry Wine"). Be sure to leave a ring of yellow between the thistle center and burgundy paint.
• Spritz with your water/glycerin mixture so the darker color blends out from the center and creases. You can also use a clean paintbrush to help spread the paint out and towards the edge of the petals.

OYL Flower: Sundance (bottom left pic) or Quincy (bottom right pic).

Painting Technique: Dip Dye and Hand Paint.

• Use the dip dye method for your base red coloring (FolkArt "Cardinal Red"). While the flower is damp but not soaked (give them around 30-45 minutes of drying time), hand paint the inner creases of the petals with burgundy paint (we used FolkArt "Berry Wine").
• Spritz with your water/glycerin mixture so the darker color blends out from the center and creases.
• Once the flower is mostly or fully dry, use a paintbrush to apply brown paint* to the center.
• Since the centers of these flowers are longer and a little trickier to paint, we suggest adding a small amount of water to your brown paint so it is able to easily slide down the center spikey part towards the center of the flower.

Create Your Own Combos!

The best part about these color combinations and hand painting techniques is that you can use them for any of the sunflowers in the assortment! We mixed and matched them all and love the final outcome below!

 

Happy painting!

 

*Brown paint used for all flowers was FolkArt "Real Brown"