Craft Week: Paper Flower Bouquet

 Since it is the middle of summer I thought we would have a bit of craft fun this week! Before Cravings was reality I played on another blog called With Joy. It is a really random hodge podge of stuff but I thought I could share some of the craft tutorials from there. These flowers were made for my daughter's 1st birthday party. I had seen accordion flowers in pictures but had never seen a tutorial so I just played till I figured out what worked for me. 

Fanned Paper Flower Tutorial

Supplies:

5-6 sheets of various colors and patterns of cardstock

Double stick tape

Punches, die cut machine, measuring cups, or cookie cutters

Glue Gun and glue sticks

Glue stick

Bamboo skewer or small dowel

Ribbon to wrap skewer (optional)

8 simple steps and you will be in flower city!

Step 1:

Cut 12x12 card stock in 4 strips at any desired width depending on the size flower you want. Mine are 4" in strips. If you use 8x10 sized cardstock you may need an additional strip. 

P.S. - I had to make this late at night so I apologize ahead of time for the flash photography going on. 

Step 2:

Fold your four strips into fans

Step 3:

Double stick tape the ends of your folded strips. You will end up with a long line as seen below. 

Step 4:

Bring your two ends together in a circle formation. Use double stick tape to secure. At this point your circle will probably flip up on you or might be a bit difficult to mange. Have no fear the fix is coming!

Step 5: 

Flip your circle to what you want to be the backside. Place glue from your glue gun on a circle punch or a square of card stock and use this to stabilize the "flower". One hand holds the circle with the glue and the other is pushing your folded paper circle tight. The inside circle should all be touching each other. You will need to hold your circle/glue there till you feel like it is on the dry side. 

At this point I need to interrupt this regularly scheduled tutorial with a MISTAKE!

When I flipped my flower back over and started to adorn the front side it wasn't working right. It was floppy. I went back to my original flowers and realized I had used all cardstock. The 12x12 paper I had used for this project wasn't cutting it. So I headed back to my paper drawer and grabbed bright colored cardstock. I repeated the above steps to get to Step 6. Hope this doesn't only happen to me! 

Step 6:

Adorn the front of your flowers any way you please!

In the original flowers for Avery's party I simply used various sized punches of coordinating patterns in the palate and then added a center button. It worked well for a vintage theme. 

For this flower I was going for Spring, bright and festive. I played with the the items you see around the flower and picked what you see in the picture. So many options! So many flowers to make! My Cricut and Silhouette were used for the below shapes but you could use a cookie cutter or measuring cup as your template to achieve any look you wanted. 

Step 7:

Glue a bamboo skewer to the back side of your flower. If you want to cover the skewer you can wrap it in any form of ribbon. I used green raffia for the ones seen in Avery's party. 

Step 8:

Place in the vase of your choice. I also think this one would be adorable hanging from ribbon. 

Soooo many possibilities! Easter, Fourth of July, Baby Shower, the list goes on and on.

Step 9:

ENJOY! 

If you make some I would love to see pictures!

P.S. - I always like to know how long crafts are going to take me. The 24 I made for the Butterfly Party took me a bit over 5 hours. It was some good TV watching! Hope that helps.