Flower power!

My daughter and I went a little paper flower mad yesterday.
It turned out that she was rather good at paper flower making, turning out beautiful blooms after just a couple of tries.
So if a 12 year old can do it………….

Start with pages torn from a very old book that is unlikely to see any further action than to be pulpped for field fertilizer.
I used an old yellowing novel from my own shelf and a couple of larger ones bought from my local Scope shop.

Simply cut a spiral, free hand, with scissors. There is no need to draw it out. A slightly wavy shape is better. Leave the round disc shape at the end.

Working from the outside of the spiral, wind up the paper using a fine knitting needle or even a cocktail stick.

When you wind, try and keep the inside edge of the paper level with that that is on the needle and let the outer edge just do it’s thing. This outer edge won’t be wound so tight.

You can experiment with how tight you wind your paper, depending on how tight you want your bloom.

When you get to the end, just let go!

Your bloom will unravel slightly, creating the flower.

We made loads to this stage for a big gluing session at the end.

I’ve seen glue guns used for gluing the flowers but we just used a white paper glue, the sort that dries clear, and a paint brush.

Take your flower and push the centre through with you finger like this.

Paint on some glue all around the exposed centre and also paint some on the centre of the disc.
Then push your flower down onto the disc and hold for a few seconds.

We used our old crafting trays to push the flower down on to. It’s a bit messy and you need a surface that you can peel the flower off before it sets hard.
We also painted some glue in between some of the ‘petals’ and pushed the centre of the flower to one side to give them more of a natural appearance.
After a couple of minutes, nudge the paper flower off the surface and turn over to dry.

A lovely simple bloom.

For what I had in mind I also needed some larger, fuller blooms.
Using exactly the same method we round up some spirals of paper but more loosely this time. Arrange and glue the flower leaving a large round space in the centre. When dry simply glue a smaller flower into a larger one.

I think you could also use newspaper but I’ve yet to have a go. The pink pages of a Financial Times would look good.

Ultimately I will stick these onto wire stems for uses in various arrangements I have planned for the BIG DAY. I also plan to add some pearl effect beads to the centre. But meanwhile, they look lovely in this.

Love, Lucie xx