an illustrated wedding

How to make paper flowers


I got the idea to make all the flowers for my wedding after seeing an amazing paper bouquet on the BHLDN website (the website where I bought my wedding dress!).


After finding various tutorials via Martha Stewart's DIY wedding website, I decided it was do-able and proceeded to purchase crazy amounts of crepe paper and started experimenting. However, I found that they were a little too 'faux' looking, and not natural enough for the look I was after.


I dabbled in making flowers out of old maps and fabric which failed miserably, and racked my brains for other ideas on how to make my flowers look a little less naff than what I had come up with already. I knew it was just the colours of the paper that were making them look a bit too fake...not the actual method of the flower making.


Then it hit me over the weekend...TEA STAINING!


So off I went, turning our kitchen into a petal making factory (which I am sure my boy was thrilled about!). 


The result... super gorgeous, natural, vintage looking florals. I was so impressed with my handy work, I just had to share with you. There are lots of tutorials out there on how to make paper flowers, but I think this method is the one that will give you the most natural looking flowers (if I do say so myself!!).

What you will need:

White crepe paper

scissors

black tea or coffee

a wire coat hanger and pegs

black crepe paper (or any colour)

natural green tissue paper (or any colour you like)

florist wire

florist tape (green or brown)

How to:

Follow the above illustration. But here are a few tips: 

1. It's important to leave your crepe paper unfolded. You will be able to make LOTS of petals at the same time, and they will be less likely to rip than if you do them one or a couple at a time.

2. Instead of tea, get creative with watercolours instead. I've used greens and pinks for my flowers and they turned out lovely.

3. Peg your petals onto a wire coat hanger (bottom of petal in contact with the peg). This makes it much easier to put on and take off the clothes line.

4. Because crepe paper is stretchy, you can manipulate your petals to look very realistic by stretching a bit at the top and middle...leaving the base un-stretched.

Here are a few photos of the paper flowers I have done so far!

paper blossom. love how these turned out.

please excuse my un-plastered wall...a work in progress.

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