A football made of flowers question

[Joe Mioux]

Has anyone ever done it?

We have to make a "noticeably sized football" for a funeral on Sunday.

I am thinking just using a bunch Oasis blocks and cutting out the form.

However, I really don't want this thing to get too heavy and I don't want to toothpick flowers into styrofoam.

thanks
joe

 

[Tracy D'Amico]

We did a stand piece type, if that's what you're looking for ...
I don't toothpick my pomps Just poke 'em right in the styro, and it wasn't difficult. The cutting technique Treen & Ruscus spoke of would work well ...
good luck!


I can't upload a pic right now (exceeding my quota?) , but post your e-mail and I can send it through gmail for you ..

 

[Lizi]

Have not done a football, I did a golf ball once. Use styro and picked white carns and white poms to give it that dimpled look. Carns up and poms lower. Turned out great, lost my tail on it though.

 

[alldayforplay]

Football

i PREFER THE 3 INCH DOUBLE POINTED PICK METHOD MYSELF, BUT TRACY DOES A FINE JOB WITH JUST CUTTING THE POM PONS ON ANGLE AND STICKING THEM RIGHT IN THE STYROFOAM. YOU ARE RIGHT ON WITH THE EXTRA WEIGHT OF THE OASIS AND WATER WAY TO HEAVY.

 

[LJVF]

Has anyone ever done it?

We have to make a "noticeably sized football" for a funeral on Sunday.

I am thinking just using a bunch Oasis blocks and cutting out the form.

However, I really don't want this thing to get too heavy and I don't want to toothpick flowers into styrofoam.

thanks
joe

Sounds challenging. Is it going to be flat or 3 dimensional? Styro seems the way to go. But if you want an alternative method perhaps you can connect two oasis solid foam hearts together to form a football shape and have them stand on two easels?

 

[virginia_Bob]

Joe,
We haven't done a football but We have done tractors, A bull, a 5' tall angle (last week). I would cut out styro, use ferning pins and cushions (rust if you can get em) Or yellow and spray brown, white for the stripes and stitching. We have done the big shapes with the oasis sheets but it makes something that big awfully heavy. Also Spray the whole thing with Mumtight and you should be good.

I have never done one yet but the guy Jo worked for years ago when she was training could do a deer jumping over a fence that almost made you want to go grab your shot gun.

Hope that helps,

Bob

Bob

 

[Joe Mioux]

We did a stand piece type, if that's what you're looking for ...
I don't toothpick my pomps Just poke 'em right in the styro, and it wasn't difficult. The cutting technique Treen & Ruscus spoke of would work well ...
good luck!


I can't upload a pic right now (exceeding my quota?) , but post your e-mail and I can send it through gmail for you ..

[email protected]

 

[Ruscus]

Has anyone ever done it?

joe

Hi Joe
Yes we have made Footballs quite a few times over the years. In the old days before Oasis we would have a wire frame made, this would then be mossed and the xants wired onto this.
If the frame maker was unable to get it made in time the quick method was to get a cushion frame & use that as the base. If this was a wire frame then using some 1/8 " wire to make a T shaped pole sticking up from the base on to this build up a moss ball making sure that the finished ball was far enough away from the base to allow the xants to go under the ball.
If your base is oasis designer sheet then use a wooden broom stick glue this into the sheet put some screws or nails at 90 degrees near the top and build up your moss ball. Or if you have a large oasis ball stick this over the wooden post.

Here is a link showing a Val Spicer pre made football frame. http://www.valspicer.co.uk/store/index.php?act=viewCat&catId=18

Most important thing is to have the ball mounted Above the base if not when you base it your will end up with just a BUMP not a BALL


hope this helps.

 

[treen]

American or British

Not sure if it's an American football your after? I have attached a pic of a very simply English type football.

As Ruscus says the most important thing to remember when mounting any "sphere" shaped objects is to raise it slightly from whatever you use as a base. If you don't it looks like the ball is sinking!

Carving sphere shapes wastes a lot of foam so make sure you start off with a bigger than expected piece. My top tip for anything 3D is to make a small prototype first to judge your mistakes before you start hacking into large expensive blocks of foam. I'm not really familiar with carving/sculpting from blacks of styrofoam as we don't use it here but I understand it is similar to the hard side of our wettable oasis design sheets. If I had to carve from this I'd use an electric carving knife ....... not sure if anyones ever tried that?

Massing the shape is no problem ...... I always like to keep the flower heads tight to the foam to ensure good clean shape but I am a little unfamiliar with your techniques so not sure about that either.

I thought you might also like to see the 3D bears we do here too ..... same principle......... sculpted 3D foam shape on a base.....

 

[Joe Mioux]

After thinking about where and how this Football was going to be displayed, we chose the following form.

For those of you who don't know me, I love looking at the mechanics of an arrangement.

We used Sahara II and hot glued and hycanith staked/pinned the blocks together. We used an inverted two plant pot cover to save on Sahara blocks.

The designers are Linda (a former designer/employee who helps me on the holidays and busy weekends) and my daughter Jennifer.

The color of the football represents the High School's colors.

I chose Sahara II because we didn't have to toothpick, philly pin or glue the flowers into the media.

Overall the football is about 3 feet long, and 12-15inches tall. I estimated that we used 7 bunches of yellow cushion pomps and a couple bunches of purple statice.

 

[Victoria]

Well done to Linda and your daughter Joe. It looks wonderful.

And Treen... your work leaves me speechless. Fantastic.

V

 

[treen]

BLIMEY!!!!!!
Thats a whoppa!!!!!!

Fab job! Well done

And Treen... your work leaves me speechless. Fantastic

Thanks Victoria

 

[SusieandLily]

mothers day?

How do you all have time to talk about this football on Mother's day weekend????
Isn't anyone busy?

 

[treen]

Not me

My MD was 8 weeks ago and I'm very jealous:redface2:

I love Mothers Day but she's right .......... get back to work you lot:scatter

 

[Joe Mioux]

How do you all have time to talk about this football on Mother's day weekend????
Isn't anyone busy?

We had 4 funerals this weekend, a very heathy ($) mothers day, and I had a very good week selling greenhouse plants to other flower shops -- best in years.

You deal with the curve balls as they come to you pitch by pitch.

The one thing we don't do are weddings on Mothers Day.

joe

 

[Victoria]

How do you all have time to talk about this football on Mother's day weekend????
Isn't anyone busy?

Life, or death, doesn't stop because it's Mother's day. My friend lost her mother today... she has to fly to Poland. Her Father-in-law died last week. This day sucks.

V

 

[Tracy D'Amico]

Still can't upload a pic, but yours came out well I see!

 

[Joe Mioux]

Still can't upload a pic, but yours came out well I see!

That is because I know what I am doing.:>

all the best
joe

 

[RWK]

Not sure if it's an American football your after? I have attached a pic of a very simply English type football.

As Ruscus says the most important thing to remember when mounting any "sphere" shaped objects is to raise it slightly from whatever you use as a base. If you don't it looks like the ball is sinking!

Carving sphere shapes wastes a lot of foam so make sure you start off with a bigger than expected piece. My top tip for anything 3D is to make a small prototype first to judge your mistakes before you start hacking into large expensive blocks of foam. I'm not really familiar with carving/sculpting from blacks of styrofoam as we don't use it here but I understand it is similar to the hard side of our wettable oasis design sheets. If I had to carve from this I'd use an electric carving knife ....... not sure if anyones ever tried that?

Massing the shape is no problem ...... I always like to keep the flower heads tight to the foam to ensure good clean shape but I am a little unfamiliar with your techniques so not sure about that either.

I thought you might also like to see the 3D bears we do here too ..... same principle......... sculpted 3D foam shape on a base.....

As of yet, we cannot get the Val Spicer forms here in the States, If you are using the sculpt sheet, would you show us the bear frame BEFORE flowers and cover the cutting technique again? I have a design show coming up and I want to show that style of design

 

[treen]

I do use a pre-formed shape for the bears but I seriously adapt/re-scuplt it which you could do from scratch. I do have some pics of the naked frame during the process which I'll happily post for you ......... just bear with me today as am very busy....... maybe get time while I'm eating my lunch.