Blossom Cats (b.5 June 2010)

Blossom Cats

It seems like an appropriate time to introduce the second bunch of Flower Cats I've made, rather than keep to the strict chronological order of birth of my wee creatures! These Blossom Cats were a very special commission for a very special person - Anna Stassen of Sakura Jewellery.



Anna is half Japanese and has a special love of blossoms ('sakura' is Japanese for cherry blossom). So when she saw the pictures I posted of the Flower Cats, she asked if I could do her three Blossom Cats based on peach, apple and cherry blossom. She was very excited about them and wrote about them at length here.

I could picture how the five petals of the blossoms would work really well, and I also felt it was important to have the flower stamen showing too, because they are such an integral part of blossom. I also decided to make sure the heads were roughly the same colour as the centre of each blossom, which meant blending the green 'stem' with the coloured 'centre'.

I cut the petals from a fairly thick sheet of clay, and added leaves underneath for extra support. I used gold-plated head pins for the stamen, which I bent slightly to create a more natural shape, I secured each of them with a spot of liquid polymer clay.
When it was time to cure them, because the petals were curled upwards, I created a paper collar (very Blue Peter) to keep them in that shape - otherwise, the petals would 'wilt' as the temperature increased. The paper collar worked very well, and was easy to remove once the Blossom Cats had cooled down.

To see the Blossom Cats in their new habitat, check out Anna's lovely blog post about them here. Thanks again, Anna! There are many more Flower Cats just waiting to sprout up :)

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