[Mary K]

Lana, for a sunflower design I would make a stamen cane of indian (glasstronics) dark green with jet layered over it and pulled out to a point, like a pencil with a long tip, you can keep pulling more out as you need it, but one point is enough for one pendant. that will be your seeds in the middle. Then you need caramel pulled out to about a 2mm or 3mm stringer.
Press your maria out. Do you have a marver on your torch? if you do you can lay the maria sideways on it and use a paddle to make the maria flatter and a little wider, I like to do this for a design of this sort. Do you understand what I mean? If not, just go with what you have.
start your design in the middle lay lots of small dots of the stamen cane, cover most of the middle leaving room for your petals. You can make a sunflower with only one row of petals, or you could do two depending on the size of your maria, but I would go with one for the first try. Lay small lines of caramel around the edge of the maria, just straight lines. Make them as even as possible, but not necessary to be perfect, as flowers are not. heat them and using a small blade scripto knife indent each one with a slight pull to the outside edge, just a slight pull, and try to do each one at the same depth so some petals don't expand more than others. After you do that, pick up your stamen cane and do a few more dots getting as close to the petals as you can. your maria will look like it is all dots, with only a small layer of petals around the edge. heat and compress as usual, remember with a pendant you don't have to get a terminated flower as you won't see it from behind like a marble flower. Then I usually give my florals a dip in fine paparazzi frit and then small shamrock frit for the look of moss in the backround. Finish with a bail of jet and there you go. I make a lot of these for summer, very popular. Any more questions please ask.
Remember to turn your flame down small to make the tiny dots, you want to keep control.