DIY PAPER FLOWERS TUTORIAL WITH PAPERCHASE

Move over paper pom poms there’s a new DIY decoration in town.  A couple of weeks back my Bijou sidekick Eleanor and I attended a crafting workshop with the High Street’s favourite stationer Paperchase.  We had fun stretching paper and playing with hot glue guns to create this year’s Wedding craft must-have the paper flower.  And here’s one we made earlier….

Now over to Eleanor to help you get your craft on this weekend with this DIY paper flower tutorial.

By Bijou’s Eleanor

Because it’s now Spring (yay!) and because we all enjoy feeling like we’ve created something, I’d like to present a step by step guide to making some truly wonderful DIY paper flowers.  These pretty flowers can be used in a variety of ways to jazz up your Wedding or just around the house. Whatever you choose to do with them this is a great way to unleash your creative side.

‘A Crafty Alternative’, who hold workshops in and around London, showed us how to make these great decorations or at least tried to!  They have lots of Wedding friendly workshops that you can book for hen parties or just a general get together with like-minded, craft-loving friends.

You will need for this DIY paper flower tutorial:

Heavy weight crepe paper (normal craft crepe paper will be too flimsy) in whatever colours you like plus green for the leaf & stem details
Florist Wire (18 gauge 14 inch- 1 per flower and 22 gauge 14”- 2 per flower)
Florist Tape (Stemtex)
Hot Glue gun or a tube of UHU Glue
Scissors
A round pencil/pen
And here’s what you do:
1. Cut out your petals (x15 big- in the shape of a rounded heart and x5 small- in normal shaped petals) and leaves. Make sure the grain of the crepe paper runs from top to bottom.

2. Begin by stretching your petals. Stretch them outward from the middle to create a light cupping effect.  Once they are all stretched you can start rolling the top edges around a pencil to help them curl back, just like a flower in bloom.
3. Using your glue put a small amount (1-2cm) near the bottom of one of the small petals and attach it to the wire.  Tightly fasten the paper around the wire to hold in place. Repeat with all the petals (shown in picture 5&6 7&8) attaching the next petal approximately half way around the previous glued petal to create a full bloom effect.

4. Now that your flower is complete you need to attach the small green leaves to the base of the flower.   Use three to four small leaves and glue to the base of the flower bloom around the wire.

5. Next you need to add one or two leaves to the stem.  Add a strip of glue to one of the cut out larger leaves. Now place the wire on top of the glue. Fold the leaf over onto itself so that the glue connects the two halves of the leaf over the wire. When dry, open the leaf back out.  This creates a realistic central focus for the leaves.

6. Now to the trickiest part, one bit Alex and I struggled with.  Starting from the top of the rose (at the base of the petals) start wrapping the florist tape or green crepe paper strip down the stem. The trick is to glue a small section at the top to hold the tape in place.  Now gently pull the loose ribbon or tape to a downward 45 degree angle and twizzle the stem/ wire.  After a few inches attach one of the leaf wires by winding the tape around both the stem and the leaf wire.  Fasten at the bottom with more glue and if necessary trim any excess wire.

… And there you have it! A wonderful paper flower made 100% by you!

If this kind of creative event tickles your fancy, you should head to Paperchase this Easter where they are hosting lots more crafting workshops. You can book tickets and find out more here.

On a complete side note, whilst we were there we found some awesome wedding goodies- Paperchase’s new range is great.  These napkins and flags as an alternative to confetti were our absolute faves.