Paper flowers – How do I make them, and how do I use them?

Paper crafting have several styles. Some use a lot of flowers, and others just don’t use as many flowers. Some also say they think it’s difficult to use flowers. It’s really all about practice. Remember that some of those who use lots of flowers are designers, and get the flowers free, or for a good price. Making some of the flowers yourself is a good idea, to save money. This article will give you som e tips in how to make different flowers and how to use them.

Creating flowers yourself

Flower punch and dies.
There are several flower punches and dies in different brands. Some of these are quite old, and you should be able to get some good punches or dies second hand if you are lucky.

Tutorial for the red flowers above can be seen here: A flower tutorial

READ ALSO: THE ELEGANT STYLE

Below, I am showing a flower tutorial on how I create som e simple roses:

I have also used quite a bit of rolling roses. These, I normally just cut out with scissors. I start with a circle and cut a spiral inwards, towards the centre of the circle. The I ad glue to the top of the paper spiral, and start rolling from the outer edge and inwards, towards the centre. Some of the projects I have used these flowers on, can be seen below.

This way of rolling flowers can be shown here:

You can also make flowers out of pretty Washi Tape:

If you are patient, you can make origami flowers like these below. These kind of flowers might be better in use on larger projects.

 

Heartfelt flowers

Heartfelt has been on the marked for several years. They have now closed. It you would like some sets with dies, embossing platforms stamps, hurry. They should still be in the shops. If not, you might be able to get some second hand.  Heartfelt have several different sets, and they give you the potential to create gorgeous flowers.

The first film here is from Creativation. showing you some of the variation of flowers you can make.

This film shows you more Heartfelt flowers, and how you can use these on different projects.

The film below shows you how you can make flowers without the embossing plates. Here, they have used  Classic rose, which is my favourite set from Heartfelt.

The video below shows the embossing folder in use:, not using the stamp set.

 

Foamiran Flowers

These flowers are created with very thin foam sheets. The flowers are dies out of the foam sheets, and heated with an iron. This makes the foam sheet curle. The flowers below are created by Emilia Sieradzan, who is fantastic with these flowers.

 

How to decorate with flowers?

Some use a glue gun to fix the flowers to the project. I often use Liquitex Heavy gel. With this glue, you may re position your flowers, and the glue will dry over night.

I often see that those who has not used a lot of flowers before, often use a lot of simple, and flat flowers, often in strong colours. The flowers are glued one next to the other, making sure the flowers and evenly spread, and not overlapping.

You may use flowers in strong colours, but make sure the flowers complement the card or project. The background paper here is from Doodlebug – Counting sheep. You may use simple flowers, but more tree dimensional flowers will give your project a bit more dimension. .

I do also advice you to add the flowers in small bunches, where they overlap and touch. Use 1, 3, 5, 7 or many flowers together.

It can also be nice to have leaves or swirls in between the flowers.

I use these flower tips to all my projects. If I use a motive, I often use 3D foam to glue these to the background. Then I glue the flowers in between the the motive and the background.  I also use leaves, die cuts, metal, thread etc, in between the flowers.

The film below shows you haw you can decorate with flowers, notice that the same “rules” for using flowers are used here.

I decorate with flowers in mixed media projects with the same guide lines as above. The flowers are not painted here, to keep them simple with the techniques used on the egg. The leaves are die cuts, in the same green colour as the egg. The inside of the egg here, is golden.

If you are going to paint the flowers, you don’t really need flowers in a nice colour.Therefore, save old flowers in strange colours.

 

How can I make a  project with the illusion of lots of flowers, without spending lots of money on flowers?

Remember that quite a few of those that show projects with lots of flowers, are designers, and they gett the flowers free or pay a reduced price for them. If this does not apply to you, the you need to be creative. Some flowers cost a little fortune, and other flowers are quite cheap. You can also make a lot of flowers yourself. You can also get patterned paper with flowers. Fussy cut the flowers, and you suddenly have a lot of flowers. Be wise. Mix expensive flowers with hand made or cheap ones. Also add metal, leaves, die cuts, pearls and other things to fill up among the flowers.

Good luck with creating and using paper flowers.

Kirstens blog: My Craft and Garden Tales