mother’s day: paper flower bouquets

I’ve recently decided I don’t like the idea of buying things I can make (or at least attempt to make) myself. In light of that, I wanted to do something fun and homemade for Mother’s Day and thought a paper flower bouquet might be a fun twist on the standard Mother’s Day gift.

I made one of these for Brandon’s mom and one for my mom. Both seemed pleased. I think moms will always appreciate handmade gifts from their kids, even when their kids are 25. Though I must say that drawing a couple disproportionate crayon stick figures and writing “I LOVE MY MOM” would have taken considerably less time.

Since these were my first attempts, I decided not to go too overboard and stuck with a small grouping of smallish flowers. You could really do just about any size, depending on how much time (and patience!) you have.

I started with the basic kusudama shape I wrote about previously. The great thing about the kusudama method is that you can vary several factors to get different looks with the same basic technique: the number of petals, the size of the paper (and the final size of the flower), the number of visible colors, etc. For these bouquets, I used three-, four-, and five-petalled flowers, just to mix it up.

For some more variety, I looked up origami flowers and decided to use these. I won’t try to explain how to fold these here; to be honest, it took me awhile to figure out the instructions, and I’m still not convinced I’m doing it right. But hey, it worked!

Finally, inspired by CRAFT, I came up with another method of flower-making. I guess you could call it a rose, though I wasn’t specifically out to make one. The instructions for that will be another post.

Pro tip: Be patient. Seriously. These bouquets take awhile, but I think they’re well worth it. Once you’ve got the folds down, this would also make a good watching-a-movie project.

Materials:
Paper in various colors, shapes, sizes*
Scissors/paper cutter
Ruler
Hot glue
Floral tape
Floral wire
Ribbon
*I forgot green paper, so I had to make some by attacking white computer paper with green colored pencil. That’s almost like crayon stick figures, right?

Here we go:
Make a plan (even if it’s a vague one) about the number of flowers you want in the bouquet and their general sizes. I found it was easier to do this and then cut all the paper at the same time, before I started folding.

Cut the paper according to the number/type of flowers you want. The kusudama require one square sheet per petal; the origami bell flowers are just one square sheet each.

Fold away! Don’t glue anything yet. (Again, I found it easier to do all the gluing at the same time.)

Cut the floral wire to the desired stem length, one for each flower.

The gluing process will depend on the individual flowers you’re using, but in cases with fewer petals, I found it easier to glue the petals directly to the stem (with the stem about halfway up the length of the petal), rather than gluing them to each other. That way, I could make sure they’d be nice and centered, and I wouldn’t have to worry about jamming the stem up between the petals later.

For the kusudama flowers with more petals, I glued the petals to each other except for the last one. Before attaching that one, I glued the stem in the inner circle (again, about halfway up the petal).

You can just make out the tiny hole in the bottom.

I used two different methods on the bell flowers, and neither was really better than the other (both require “covering up” the glue later). For some, I cut a tiny hole in the bottom of the flower, inserted the stem, then secured with hot glue on the inside of the flower. For others, I glued the stem into one of the flaps on the outside.

At this point, the flowers are basically built. However, I was unhappy with how some of them looked – the glue was visible. Not cool. So, I devised a way to cover it up:

Fold a small piece of paper in half, then in half again. Cut an arch (to form a circle when the paper is unfolded). On the arch, cut many small incisions pretty close together, then unfold and cut the circle in half. Each half can be rolled up and glued inside the center of a flower to cover up the ugly glue mess.

Now for the leaves. Cut out some leaf shapes and basically glue them wherever you want. I used them sparingly, mostly to cover up gluey areas (on the bell flowers, in particular).

Once you’ve got each flower looking good, you’re ready to assemble the bouquet. I recommend starting with the flower you want to be in the center and working outward. Otherwise, I don’t have many tips – I just played around with arrangements until I had something I liked.

Gather all the stems into one thicker stem – I twisted mine together to make sure they were secure. Cut the stems to the same length, then cover in floral tape. (At this point, let me just stop and say that floral tape is weird stuff. It sticks to itself, so there’s no need to secure it.)

Anyway, hold the tape in one hand and roll the stems in the other. I found that to be the most effective method, rather than trying to wrap the stems by moving the tape around.

Spiff up your bouquet with some ribbon and handmade gift tags in coordinating colors, and you’re done!