April Showers Bring Paper Flowers

This week, I challenged Laura McHugh and myself to make three dimensional paper flowers into a bouquet. I just made about 40 of these items to use as thank you gifts for a committee team that did a fundraiser, so it was easy for me to go back to what I had done there.

I started by taking pages from an old (late 1800s) dictionary and painted in watercolor on them. This would also be fine without any watercolor, as a black and white flower, but I like color so I chose a light yellow, sage green, hot bright pink and aquamarine blues.


I just painted lazy circles on each paper, all laid out on my kitchen island. I think I did it while on a conference call. Phone calls are the perfect time to do this mindless "doodling." In fact, I try not to think too hard about what I am painting so as to keep it very loose.

 

I like to do things in batches. I did 10-12 of each color. Secret about me? I want to write a book on  efficiencies used by artists when doing production work like this.

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The next step is to fold the paper. I start by folding one really good crease of the right width (approximately 3/4" in this case). Then, I pile 5-6 papers together and start creasing back and forth.


I've seen instructions that recommend using a ruler to measure and draw all the fold lines. You can do that if you want, but I personally don't have the patience for that.


Next is to separate the 5-6 papers and recrease with a bone folder. After that, each accordian folded paper is folded lengthwise in half.





Each of these papers will be one flower. I use a hot glue gun to glue the inside and outside papers back on each other. What you get is a fantastic circular flower, ready to add the center and something to hang it up by when you are ready to.







The center of these flowers are really ugly before you complete them, so I punched out some paper I had from shopping bags and some cardstock. Then, I used a sticker set from Cavallini to embellish the centers. These elements were all glued on using the hot glue gun.

In this case, I used an old stamp and a piece of off-white cardstock. (I do the same thing in plain paper on the reverse side and use the circle there to put a sticker with my contact information.)


Arranged in a beautiful vase, they are a bounty of blossoms ready to kick of May in style.


What is your favorite flower? Enjoy.