With Mother's Day just around the corner, what better way to show your appreciation than with a bouquet of handmade paper flowers? Read this blog post to create your own beautiful blooms that will brighten Mum's day and bring a smile to her face! One might say, your creativity will ‘blossom’ while making them 😉
HOW TO MAKE A HANDMADE FLOWER:
WHAT YOU NEED:
- Scissors
- Coloured Card (green and one other colour)
- A paint marker
- Double-sided tape
- Masking tape
- Hobby Wire
STEPS:
- Cut your piece of coloured cardstock into a square.
- In this demonstration, we used a 30cm x 30cm square, but you can make flowers of any size you like!
- Draw a spiral on the square cardstock, and then draw some ‘petals’ as a scalloped edge along one side of the spiral. Leave a ‘stem’ with no petals at the end of your spiral.
You can download our free petal template by clicking the link below if you’d rather just print it out!
PAPER FLOWER TEMPLATE PDF.
- Cut out the spiral, and trim the flat ‘stem’ from the end.
- With a yellow paint marker (or any colour you like!), colour half of this flat piece.
- Make small cuts along the coloured edge of this piece. Once cut, set this piece aside; we’ll come back to it later to use as the centre of our flower.
- Start rolling your flower from the outside edge.
- You can use a circular instrument like a pencil or a bamboo straw to get yourself started.
- Use your fingers to pinch the flower shut and keep it from expanding too much while you roll.
- Once you’ve rolled the flower all the way, grasp the last petal in your fingertips. Stick a piece of double-sided tape (or PVA glue) to this petal, and press it to the bottom of your roll.
- You can let your flower relax a little in your hands if you’d like the petals to be more open.
- Like how we rolled the flower, roll the centre piece (coloured and cut earlier) tightly from one end. When you reach the end, attach it with double-sided tape to your roll.
- Using another piece of double-sided tape (or a dab of PVA glue), attach the bottom of your centre to the centre of your flower.
- Now, cut some leaf shapes from green cardstock. We used two separate shades of green here to add some contrast to the flower! Attach these leaves to the bottom of your flower using double-sided tape.
- Once you have attached as many leaves as you would like, using masking tape, make a ‘criss-cross’ pattern on the bottom of your flower to stabilise it.
- For the stem of the flower, we used hobby wire. Fold the hobby wire in half, and twist it together for strength.
- Finally, fold the top of the wire at a right angle, and attach it to the bottom of your paper flower with masking tape.
And voila! You have a paper flower!
These are very quick and easy to make, and take minimal supplies. You can even make Mum a whole bunch of flowers using this technique!
