Beeswax Flowers

As well as candles, soaps, paintings in beeswax, I've recently started making flowers out of beeswax. I thought you might like to know how they're done, so...

First get the wax. I'm going to make yellow roses. The beeswax I'm going to use is already a lovely yellow colour so there's no need to die it. For a different coloured rose, or if my wax was not such a good flower colour, I would.

The petals are cut from thin sheets of wax. These are made by pouring molten wax onto a wet sheet of plywood.



I need yellow for the petals



and green for the leaves.

Next I prepare the stalk.

 This is florists wire with a little cotton wool on the end. The cotton wool is dipped into molten wax. The petals will attached securely to this. The wire is then coated in florists tape.

The centre petals are a little different to the rest. Look how they curl.

 Each rose needs at least 8 petals cut out.

They're individually shaped and then curled around the centre petal one by one. Shaping and firmly attaching to the stem needs warm hands. At this stage they really begin to look like roses.

Now the leaves. A smaller piece of wire is prepared to take the leaves, which are cut out of double thickness wax. The double thickness is so that the wire can fit between them and hold them securely.

Once individual leaves are attached, they need marking with veins and the edges serrating.

The calyx and rosehip of the rose are made from the sheets of green wax and placed just behind the rose head before the leaves are attached using florists tape, giving the final result.

Once made, the roses are quite robust. They need only avoid extremes of temperature.

It's time consuming and quite fiddly to make each rose. While it's possible to make them for weddings I suggest you contact a wedding planner like Tillyboo Events for an alternative.