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A little while back, real-bride Mallory turned out an incredible DIY or DIE post on origami flowers. I was intrigued. I was perplexed. I was… determined to try them for myself. As a decidedly less-than-innately-crafty chicken, it was a challenge I couldn’t quite resist. Plus, the promise of paper pointy monster fingers with which to play was just too tempting.
RAWR.
And I decided, if I could do it, anyone can. So to prove my point and help you along in your own paper-folding forays, we put together an episode of Broke-Ass TV to teach you how! You can also read Mallory’s tutorial here.
The finished blossoms are pretty bad-ass, dontchathink?
Are you foregoing formal foliage in favor of folding your own flowers? (also, are you a little turned-on by my sexy alliteration skills? Yeah, I thought so.)
Got a video request for us? Let us know, yo! We specialize in making dreams come true, you know.
Oh, if only I could type the word bouquet like Dana says it in this video. You’ll be saying it all day… BOW-kay!? These ain’t yo’ grandmama’s silk flowers, so get ready to put together some awesome budget-friendly and everlasting BOW-kays y’all.
When it comes to video content we’re just getting started, but the only way to catch all our videos and keep us making more, is to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Sign up and we’ll love ya forever (or as much as you’re comfortable with. We know how to play it cool and keep it casual… or do we?)
But enough typing. Presenting the lovely Dana LaRue….
…And just like your love, these flowers will last forever
Are any of you going the silk flower bouquet route for your wedding?
The most-fabulous Elsie, who you might better know as ElsieCake, or A Beautiful Mess, or from Red Velvet Shop… was kind enough to let us share her DIY bouquet tutorial from her incredibly awesome wedding… so here it is! Enjoy, ladies, and try to keep the drool from hitting your keyboards
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When I started planning our wedding I knew right away that I wanted to make my own flowers. I love creative flower arrangements. I wanted something different. I also knew that if we chose not to hire a florist that we’d save thousands of dollars (hooray!) What I didn’t know was how much FUN I would have with my bridesmaids making our bouquets. It was so so much fun and didn’t take much time at all!
If you’re considering making your own bouquets, read on! I can tell you from my personal experience that this was one of the simplest DIYs that we tried (along with the DIY Boutonnieres and DIY Corsages too!) I’ll share some tips with you….
I loved what each of the bridesmaids created! We had a bouquet making party after the rehearsal dinner. Each of the girls made their own bouquet. They each had special details like the bird charm hanging from Holly’s bouquet and Katie’s berry branches. I liked that they were all a little bit different.
Rachel snapped this photo on the morning of the wedding.
Make Your Own Bouquet
Step 1: Collect Supplies. For my wedding bouquets I used fresh flowers, handmade velvet flowers, berry twigs, feather birds, feathers and vintage brooches. I also used some family heirloom ribbon (vintage tatting) and velvet ribbon that I found the first month we were dating! Choose accents that are personal to you!
Step 2: Start from the center and build the floral base of your bouquet. Work your way out by adding more and more flowers.
Step 3: Wrap the stems with floral tape. Use as much as you need to make it feel secure. The floral tape should go where ever you plan to wrap the ribbon. The ribbon will eventually hide it completely!
Step 4: Add accent piece such as feather birds (they have wires underneath that can secure them onto blooms) or feathers.
Step 5: Wrap the base of your stems (over the floral tape) with a pretty ribbon. I also tied some lace on mine as an accent.
Ta-Da! Here’s a finished bouquet.
Have fun creating your own pretty bouquets… XO! elsie
Rainbow weddings, pretty pastel palettes, cool color combos: I’ve given you broke-ass brides almost every color and theme option under the sun, but maybe you still can’t find something that’s right for you. Maybe you want something simple and classic, but also crafty and fun at the same time…. That’s why this weeks wedding inspiration post is just for you! Basic black and white, folks. Simple, understated elegance doesn’t have to be boring or over-the-top expensive though!
Have all of your bridesmaids pick out their own black and white party dresses. I think mixing stripes, solids, and polka dots is a great way to have a little fun and also let everyone feel unique. As for footwear, let your ‘maids don anything from sandals to stilettos, and oxfords to chucks. Tie everyone’s looks together with jewelry or with similar bouquets. Voila! You have an incredibly stylish bridal party.
Of course I can’t have black and white wedding inspiration without a picture of Audrey Hepburn. I’d love to see a bride rock a great black and white ball gown! As for the cake, I LOVE this idea. Stack up some Oreo cookies and serve up some delicious milk (and soy milk too!) I also love the use of big white balloons. It’s a cheap and easy way to decorate and they look soooo fun bouncing around on the ceiling as your guests dance the night away. Lastly, that bouquet in the corner is gorgeous… and? It’s made of only carnations. I know they are a filler flower and some people turn their nose up at them, but I love them. And when you bunch them tightly together, they make an absolutely stunning bouquet.
There you have it brides to be. A unique take on a black and white wedding! Will you go with pops of color for your big day or are you a classic black and white bride?
Like many a Broke-Ass Bride, I’m forgoing flowers entirely at my wedding. I originally thought I wouldn’t need any sort of bouquet alternative, but you know how it is when you read wedding blogs. You see a few amazing bouquets made of paper or buttons or Christmas ornaments and suddenly you need a “ball of pretty” to hold in your hands on your wedding day.
I found myself particularly delighted by the ubiquitous (at least as far as non-flower bouquets can reach ubiquity) brooch bouquet, because a bouquet made of jewelry could fit in my mixed-metallic color scheme in a way that flowers never would have. I also had access to a bunch of free pins from my mother-in-law, who incorporates recycled jewelry and found metals into her artwork.
But here’s the thing, the traditional dome-shaped brooch bouquet[yeah, I'm as surprised as you are that "traditional brooch bouquet" is a phrase that makes sense in the Wild World of Wedding Websites] requires more than “a bunch” of pins. It requires a wheelbarrow full of pins. And I wanted to make four brooch bouquets. If I made my bouquets the usual way, I’d need a garden shed full of pins.
So I took a page from the Broke-Ass Brides out there with flower bouquets and made clever use of filler. The brooch bouquet version of baby’s breath is wire that’s been bent and twisted and curled into funky pleasing swirly shapes that evoke the stems and leaves and stamens of flowers.
Here’s what you’ll need:
Tools: Wire cutter, needle-nose pliers (to do the tricky bending and working that doesn’t need to look pretty), round-nose pliers (to create the pretty bends and curls). Wire: 12-gauge aluminum floral wire (for stems), 16-gauge aluminum wire (for filler), 26-gauge jewelry wire (for attaching the brooches) Brooches: 3-6 per bouquet (that’s it!!) Optional extras: Extra rhinestones or sparkly beads to liven up the filler, glue dots to snub the pointy ends of brooch pins, floral tape to wrap the handle of the bouquet to protect dresses from snags.
Here’s how to do it:
Step 1: This part’s technique is adapted from Sarah’s excellent tutorial on how to make a dome-shaped brooch bouquet. Weave a piece of 26 gauge wire through the brooch so you have a U-shape of wire with the ends sticking out of the pin. Twist the ends together to form a triangle under the pin.
Step 2: Anchor your new “brooch flower” to a sturdier piece of 12 gauge wire by looping the wire through the triangle of the smaller wire. Twist all the ends together. Admire how free-standing and non-wobbly your new brooch flower is.
Step 3:
Using your round-nose pliers and other rounded surfaces, create bends and pretty swirly loops within a piece of 16-gauge wire. Alternatively, look through your mother-in-law’s cellar until you find a shopping bag full of pre-formed swirly loops of wire that were used as napkin rings at your sister-in-law’s wedding.
[Sorry this picture is out of focus]
Step 4: Slide the stem you made in Step 2 through the pretty swirly loop from Step 3.
Step 5: Lather, rinse, repeat steps 1–4 for however many brooches you want to use. Sometimes you can put two stems through one swirly loopy piece. Just go with the flow, combining pieces until your bouquet is sufficiently bouquet-shaped.
Advantages of the filler brooch bouquet:
Lower cost! This is the biggie. Cutting down on the number of pins you need epically reduces the price of the bouquet. Or it lets you spend bigger on each pin to get some truly remarkable pieces.
Lower weight! Have you ever held a dome-shaped brooch bouquet? They weigh about as much as a three-month old baby. The filler-friendly bouquet weighs about as much as a three-month old fetus. Which one of those do you think more brides carry around on their wedding day?
The funky fresh factor. Yep, we’re now at the point where we’re discussing alternatives to bouquet alternatives. Feel free to roll your eyes! But using wire gives you so much more flexibility in shape and allows for more variation in color and texture within your bouquet. More chances to add your own personality to the finished product!
Disadvantages
One-sidedness. Dome-shaped bouquets hide the backs of the brooches. This technique doesn’t. You can sort of obscure the ugly pin backs with curly wire flourishes, but ultimately your bouquet will have a clear “best angle.” It might end up being too much of a pain to keep that facing the camera/audience at all times.
Risk of snags. More wire means more pointy ends means more things to snag your dress on. Careful, patient work with your pliers will keep your stems as neat as possible to avoid snaggy bits. But if you are rushed, lazy, and/or aren’t set on a metallic color scheme, wrap those bad boys with floral tape to smooth everything over.
The mysterious step 3. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That part of the ‘torial was a bit of a cop-out. But before the napkin ring windfall, I was making my own swirls just fine, thanksmuch. So let me tell you: if you’re prepared for a lot of trial and error and slow, steady wielding of your round-nosed pliers, you can do it. Find the technique that works for your hands and tools to create the shape that works for your bouquet.
So there you have it: the ins, outs, ups, and downs of a broke-ass variant on the brooch bouquet. Anyone else crafting with wire? Or did I lose you at “alternative to bouquet alternative”?
Be ye warned: This project is a little more complicated in the sense that it’s tedious, but the end product is 100% worth-it.
Once again, pulled from Playing with Books, I tackled the construction of a flower that has a little more structure and a little more heft to it. And, like before, I didn’t end up using storybook paper {or, sheet music, as the book calls for}. Rather, I opted for lightweight scrap-booking paper and newspaper. {I also lightly skimmed the directions, which was probably not my best move, as this is the most complicated craft project I’ve tackled. But after one glass of wine and two angry crumplings of failed attempts, I figured it all out.}
To be honest, I bought the scrap-booking paper for a different flower project without checking to make sure that it was two-sided. It was not. And then I had a $30 pad of paper that was 300 sheets strong and could not use it for the other flower project for which it had been purchased, and The Groom was not half as amused by this as I was. “Oh, stop bristling,” I told him, trying my best to think on my feet so he’d stop looking at me like that. “I’ll use it for something else.” And then, when the frowny-face did not go away, I added, with enthusiasm. “… Something better!”
But what could possibly be better than swirly roses? I wondered once he stopped glowering. Well, that’s simple. Flowers that look like they could have been made by ninjas, of course.
In Playing with Books, they’re called Kusudama. I don’t think this project technically qualifies because, traditionally {according to Wikipedia} there is sewing involved, and stacking and building, and the final product looks like a rather magnificent flower globe. I, being of far inferior ambition and skill, just want something that I can stick place cards into, and something that will look pretty dangling from the bottom of paper lanterns.
Now. Bear with me. The book’s directions were a little… I don’t exactly speak multi-directional-arrow-markers {thus the light skimming}. Still, I managed to figure it out and only glued myself to the project once {and I’ll tell you more about that later}.
Materials you will need for this project include: Round heavy objects, a paper-cutting tool with a ruler, scissors {in case something ends up being uneven, or halfway through you decide you’d like to give bangs a shot}, craft clue, bobby pins or paper clips, paper and fuzzy slippers.
Note: I don’t recommend wine and chocolate for this project because you will inevitably end up accidentally eating glue. Not that… uh… not that I know from personal experience. Or anything.
Step 1: Figure out what size squares you want to work with.
Pictured above are 12-inch {the big one}, 6-inch {the red one} and 4-inch {the smallest one} squares. From 3 sheets of 12×12 scrapbook paper {which is what my pad of scrapbook paper gave me for each color pattern} you can get two full 6-inch flowers with 6 petals each. With 4-inch squares, you get 5 flowers of 5 petals each {which still look great} and have two pieces of paper left over to turn into something else. Swirly roses, perhaps! {And if you want that project, come back next week!}
For ease of demonstration, we’re working with 6-inch squares today.
Step 2: Measure the first cut: Pop the paper into the paper-cutter and mark of at the 6-inch mark:
Now. this is where I start to cheat, because if there’s a way to make my life easier and less-wrought with math, I am going to find it and use it.
When you turn the paper to align your 6-inch mark with the blade-path, mark your second cut through the center-strip of the cutter’s ruler-arm:
This way, when you make your first cut in your paper…
… you can easily align your paper for the next cut because hey! They’re already marked for you, you smarty-pants!
All you have to do is toss them back into the cutter and give them one last zip:
Hurrah! You now have 12 pieces of 6-square-inch paper. Take a victory lap around your craft space in your fuzzy slippers! The measuring and math part is over!
Now! Onto the geometry!
Next: One at a time, fold your squares in half diagonally, so they turn into a triangle:
… And make sure to give it a good, sharp crease along the fold so you have a clear triangle:
Then: Take the points that sit on the crease in the paper and fold them both down to the third point, turning your triangle back into a square:
So the smaller square looks like this:
Whew.
Now!: This is where it gets tricky. The two points that you’ve just folded down to the third point are sort of like little paper arms, all flappy and crazy and they don’t want to stay flat. That’s fine. We’re about to fold them backwards so that their inside edge lines up with the outside of the smaller square, so they look more like wings:
Both sides will look like this:
If you’re not crumpling paper up and tossing it toward the garbage, give yourself a reward of some sort. But don’t celebrate too hard, we’re not done yet.
Once you have wings: It’s time to open those suckers up and squash them flat! You’ll notice that the paper inside the wing-fold is doubled up. Pull the inner layer up and out of the wing, causing the wing to flatten out, like so:
Cheat: It all sounds so technical and precise, right? Yeah. To get my wings to open up and flatten out, I stuck my pointer finger between the doubled-up paper and gave a good wiggle, until the paper decided it was just easier to fold outward. You don’t have to be super-gentle here. The creases are already made on the paper, essentially you’re just inverting the inside crease so that the wings fan out, which, when both sides are complete will look like this:
I promise. This sounds a lot harder than it is, and once you try it you’ll see. You’ll have to trust me until then.
Now! More folding: Now that we have nice wings, take the tips of them and fold them back to that you have a square-ish shape once more.
You’ll have small white triangles facing you if you’re using one-sided paper, but they won’t show in your final product. It’ll look like this:
Whew. You’re a trooper. Another fuzzy-slipper victory lap! Or, at this point, if you’re still with me, I give you permission to judge me for my awful manicure.
The last crease: You’re going to want to take the parts of the wings that are outside the perfect-square shape and fold them inward along the crease that runs up their center:
They won’t stay flush, but they’ll look like this:
Hurrah! We are DONE FOLDING! Now, grab your handy craft glue and get excited!
Next: Put a thin layer of glue on one of the folded wing-tabs, like so:
Then: Gently curve the paper into a conic, petal-shape, pressing the wing-tab with the glue against the other wing-tab:
After this point, you’ll see three distinct paper tabs inside the petal. Two of them are folded that way, and the third is in the middle and is made of the two tabs you just glued together. Because you are a crafting bombshell!
Before you start patting yourself on the back again: Secure the newly-glued middle-tab with a bobby pin or paper clip:
Now, better safe than sorry: Run a thin layer of craft glue down the adjoined seam, just to make sure nothing pops open and gives you a fun surprise later in the project.
… And then stick it under a round, heavy object, the tip of the petal under the object, the glued seam facing skyward, so it does not stick itself to anything:
Repeat process for all the petals. Now. Once again, this is the hard part: WAIT FOR ALL THE PETALS TO DRY. You’ll know they’re dry when all your craft glue has turned from white to clear. Do not mess with the petals until all the glue is clear!
Because the next step is…
Pretend you are a monster: {I like to think I am one of The Wild Things}
In all seriousness, grab six petals and stick your fingers inside to make sure no glue oozed into the petal. If you skip this step, you will likely glue yourself to your project in the next step, which is what I did the first two {not once, count them, two} times I went to build my flowers.
The next step: is, pretty simply, Take all the bobby pins out of the center of the dried petals and use them to clip 6 petals together, like a flower:
Sometimes, you will need to push the bobby pins around inside the petals to make sure they’re flush to the inside of the seam you’re trying to connect, and you really do not want to find out in 20 minutes when you go to extract your bobby pins that they are glued to the inside of your pretty flower.
That is why the Pretend you are a monster step is not only fun, it’s also important.
Once you have the petals clipped together: pull them all into a straight-ish line, smooshing them like an accordion:
Holding them like this makes them a lot easier to glue:
Cheat: You’re probably thinking to yourself, “Oh my goodness, there are 78 different seams. What am I gluing here?” To avoid double-gluing a seam that doesn’t need it, or missing a seam that does, here’s my cheat-rule of thumb… Glue the seams directly below the bobby pins. They’re the seams between petals that you’re trying to get to stick to one another.
Once you’ve finished with all the interior seams, which do not require a *ton* of glue, put a healthy dose of glue down the edge of the last petal:
Now: wrap the petals back into a circle, peek inside to make sure that anything that needs glue touching it has glue touching it, and fasten the last two unclipped petals together with one last bobby pin:
YES! You just made that. You deserve another reward.
So, flip that sucker upside-down to dry and go find something delicious to eat, after you wash the craft glue off your hands!
Craft glue is pretty tacky so it shouldn’t drip onto your work surface. If you use too much {which you will only do once, trust me} be prepared to pry your flower off your cutting mat with a pair of scissors or a pen-knife.
Cheat: Glue and dry your flowers over wax paper if you know you’re heavy-handed with the glue. It’s less likely to adhere with conviction to your flower, and less devastating to chip away from your project than, say, your cherry-wood table.
For an added effect, you can use Newspaper for these flowers {which is much more cost-effective}. I also coated some of the flowers with a translucent gold acrylic paint, which let the newsprint show through but gave it a more whimsical feel. I plan to use the same trick to add a little shine to my scrapbook flowers over the white bits that show around the center of the flower, and along the tips of the petals:
As always, if there are any questions or concerns, of if anything is unclear or impossible-to-understand, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me or harass me in the comments section. And if you’ve come across another origami flower, comment and let me know about it! If you try this at home, I want to hear about your successes and what cheats you came up with to make the project work for you!
Don’t forget, you crafty minxes… we’re all in this together.
This week our wedding inspiration board is all about Theresa D. She just got engaged (congrats!) to her military fiance and already, her friend’s wedding is turning out to look a lot like hers. She wants to know how she can set her vintage inspired periwinkle, sage, and red wedding apart from her friend.
I have to say, Theresa, I L-O-V-E your choice of colors. with subtle pops of red and green, you won’t have to worry about this wedding looking patriotic. Since you mentioned in your email that your hubs to be is thinking of a red vest, you can also incorporate red into some accessories to tie it all together.
Theresa also wants to keep costs down for her wedding (natch) and since she loves vintage, I think this cake is a great option. You may recognize the cake from Hilary Duff’s wedding and you know who made it? Our very own Broke-Ass Cake Collection partners, Fantasy Frostings! Holla! By not using fondant or sugar flowers, you can cut the cost of this cake while giving it the vintage look that you lurve!
As far as florals go, I think the best way to make a vintage look on a tight budget is to use a variety of flowers. You could even buy them at a farmer’s market and do this yourself. These flowers below are so adorable in these tin cans. Who’d have thought that soup cans could make for affordable and adorable wedding decor? If you want to cover the tin part up, you can spray paint them, tie ribbon around them, or even cover them with wallpaper that’s sticky on one side. It’s an easy and cheap way to spruce up the decor!
Another unique way that Theresa can set her wedding apart from her friend’s, is by creating a vignette for her guests as they walk into the reception. Since she’ll be wearing her grandmother’s wedding dress, why not feature a picture of your grandmother in that wedding dress out near you guest book? Grab some vintage items and flowers, and arrange them on the table. Maybe even include a little framed write-up about your grandmother’s wedding. This way your guests get greeted beautifully and they get a little slice of your family history as well.
I hope you found these tips and tricks helpful! Best of luck on your big day!
You probably wouldn’t have guessed this about me– and I’ll deny it if you ask me in front of my future grandfather-in-law– but I’m completely lazy.
I don’t like projects that are too complicated because I get halfway through and I’m bored, and sometimes sticky, and I’m missing my trashy TV shows, and the directions are suddenly in Spanish {what?!!} and all at once I realize that I don’t care enough about this craft to keep going. So I don’t. I stop. And I leave it there, and then The Groom comes home and asks what happened and I tell him that it’s a craft project and that he’s not allowed to touch it, even though he and I both know I have no intention of finishing it and in a week, he’ll end up using a chisel to un-stick it from my desk and tossing it in the garbage can as I stand there with Elephant in my arms wailing about how life is so unfair.
For everyone’s sake {and because I have a beastly sinus something-or-other happening that has rendered me useless as a human being this week} I have switched over to lightweight crafts for the next couple days. But being sick takes its toll on me, because I can only spend so many consecutive hours in bed, sniffling and pathetic, before I get bored and the need to bedazzle something takes me over. To resist it, of course, I made myself popcorn. And like all great ideas in life, the popcorn is really to blame. You see, I put it into a couple coffee filters {because I don’t like butter to get on my hands, which it does if you eat right from the bag, but… my mother in law had just done all the dishes. And I didn’t want to soil a bowl. So I cheated, and used coffee filters! Because I am brilliant and, also, a little crazy.} Once I was done with my snack, I got antsy again, and started fiddling with the coffee filters. The next thing I knew, I looked down to see a beautiful paper flower in my hands. {And it smelled like popcorn. So, you know. Bonus.}
And in that moment, a light bulb went on.
The research I did to validate this specific craft uncovered a Green Wedding Shoes project {here} and a Rhonna Designs flower garland {here}. But they both looked really complicated, and required tools I don’t have {shredding scissors and a sewing machine… I checked the box from the Benadryl that I had for breakfast, and I’m pretty sure the words it said were: “Do not sew anything, anything, young lady, if you have taken these. Also, The Groom owes you a pony.”} {Some of that might be untrue. I was drugged. There’s no way to be certain now.} I was left with no choice but to do what I always do when something is clearly too complicated for me to take on: I ignore the directions and make it up as I go along.
Ladies and gents: Coffee Filter Flowers, the easiest DIY project you are ever going to find.
Coffee Filter Flowers: The Easiest DIY Craft You’ll Ever Do.
I’m using these flowers for the bouquets, the centerpieces and our flower vine-garland thingies, which are still in concept development, as I’m having a hard time selling The Groom on the idea of spray painting in the house because the average temperature this week is -472 degrees and I’m allergic to hypothermia. {He’s so “logical” sometimes, though. There’s no reasoning with him.} Because so many of the flowers are going into so many different projects, I haven’t added the finishing adhesive touches to them yet.
All the same, as far as materials go, the essentials are pretty basic:
You’ll need: Coffee filters, string or floral wire {depending on how you’re adhering them to stuff}, floral tape, watercolor paint, and tissues and Motrin, if you, too, are doing this with a sinus something-or-other plaguing your existence. {And, may I just say, you are a TROOPER for sticking with your crafting through SinusPocalypse!}
Now, there are two different sizes you can make: 2-filter or 3 filter. I know it’s rocket-science level math, but stay with me now… 2-filter flowers require 2 coffee filters. 3-filter flowers require 3 coffee filters.
Left: 2-Filter flower. Right: 3-Filter flower. Depending on what size you need them to be, make to your convenience. I am using both as filler for my centerpieces, and in the girls’ bouquets. They have great volume and add a little texture and drama to floral arrangements.
Once you’ve figured out how many flowers you need, and which type you’ll be making, the steps are really simple:
Lay coffee filters together. Flip them upside-down and poke the center with your finger.
Fluff and twist coffee filters until they’re nice and flower-like-looking. I found that it worked best if you stick your first finger and your middle finger on either side of a coffee-filter layer and gave a little twist. It pulled the filter away from the other layers and added a nice swirl of “petals”. I tended to twist different layers in opposite directions of one another, which kept them from going back to their original positions.
Once the filters look like a flower, flip it over and give the bottom a good twist, so it turns into a point. *Note, this is harder to do on 3-filter flowers, as they’re a little bulkier. It’s just to create a spot for you to hang these to dry later, and serves to create a little nub for you to put the floral tape on. It doesn’t have to be super-pointy, it just has to be able to serve those two purposes.
Tra-LA! You are a crafting GODDESS! Look how pretty your coffee-filter flower looks! And here’s the best part of this project: All the work took about 30 seconds, and if you hate your flower, you can just smooth them all out and start over. Or, fill them with popcorn and call it a night. Either way, you’re a winner!
Make as many as you’d like! Stop periodically to congratulate yourself for being so amazing. Seriously, you deserve it.
When it comes to coloring the flowers, please know this: What I’m about to say sounds really technical, but it’s not.
The real key to getting a good, natural-looking color on the flowers is to make sure your paint saturation in your water isn’t too high. Which means: Dilute the crap out of your paint.
They key is to use just a liiiiiittle bit of paint. I opted to use a plastic snack plate, because last time I water-colored something, I used a tea saucer and I forgot about the paint overnight and it dried and dyed the saucer pink. As funny as I thought that was, my mother-in-law was far less amused. Now, I use disposable dishes.
To make sure I’m getting the color I wanted, I mix the paint together before I add the water. It just gives me more control over the actual color I’ll end up with– easier than adding the water and THEN trying to tweak, which can leave you with clumps of undiluted paint, which can leave you with flowers that look like they have acne. Not a good look on teenagers, not a good look on paper flowers.
I also mixed a contrast color, to brush along the edges and to bleed down the sides, because The Groom wanted peach and I wanted not-boring flowers. The way watercolor paint bleeds together is one of its biggest assets as a medium, I think. And when you hang the flowers to dry, the paint that seeps to the “tips” of your flower petals will leave a beautiful edge, like the kind you see in two-toned roses.
If you want an idea of how your paint is going to look on the filters {without ruining any of your flowers} paint a line down your paper towel. It’ll give you a pretty good idea of what it’ll look like on your paper project. From there, adjust your pigments accordingly.
Dip the flower into the paint, petal side down. Leave it in for 1, maybe 2 seconds, rolling it a little to make sure all the edges get some of the action.
Flip the flower over and let the paint drip down into all the petals. Drip more paint into the blossom with a paintbrush if there are dry or white spots. This is also when I add the contrast color to the tips of the petals. It’ll bleed a little, which is good. It gives the finished product a more natural color. You just want to run your brush along the edges of the petals, letting a little of the contrast paint drip down at a time.
Now all you have to do it hang them up and let them dry. You can easily fluff them up after they’ve dried if they flatten out a little {mine stuck together, which made me worry– they don’t end up ruined, you just have to wait for them to dry completely to pull them apart because the paper gets a little fragile.} You can see here that the contrast color bled down to the tips and gave the flowers a nice little something-something extra.
Now. My flowers didn’t drip because I only put them into the watered-down paint for a couple seconds, and because when I flipped them over, any water that would have dripped off the flower, did so down my hand and to my elbow. Happily, I live in sweatpants, so it wasn’t a huge deal for me to wipe it on my clothes. Be ready for a little bit of a mess– it’s just what happens when you work with really-watered-down-paint. If your flowers are drippy, hang them somewhere where it doesn’t really matter, and throw some paper towels under them.
You can see my fancy dry-line is just bakers twine that I tied to curtain rods on connecting walls. I thought it was brilliant, albeit a little hackneyed. The Groom just rolled his eyes and asked what I was up to.
“I am up-to being brilliant,” I informed him. “And you can thank me for it later when our wedding looks amazing thanks to my inability to admit that I am not a craft-tastic person.” He smiled and kissed me on the forehead and assured me that he would never accuse me of being ordinary and asked how he could help…
… and it was a very pleasant reminder that we’re all in this together.
So, there you are, DemiGoddess of DIY! You are sitting there, glossy-eyed with excitement at the pile of crafting stuff you just acquired from Michael’s Arts & Crafts. You… you are a magnificent creature. And I have a project for you.
Today, we’re making Delicate Paper Flowers and celebrating how amazingly crafty we are!
But first, I have a couple DIY or DIE {tips!} First and foremost — don’t ever buy anything at Michael’s for full price, unless it’s a true CraftMergency. {And it rarely is.} If you go online, you can print out their “Make Your Own Sale” coupons {click on the flyer, then click on the coupons} and always get at least one item at 40% off. {The catch is that you can only use one coupon per person, per day… so if you have a lot of stuff to grab, and more than one big-ticket item, drag your hubby along.}
And Tip #2: Start Small. I know, looking out at your new collection of sparkles, and paper, and glue {OMG, THE GLUE!}… All you want to do is reconstruct the Eiffel Tower the way they should have made it in the first place — With glitter! If, however, this is your first foray into the land of CraftDom, take my advice… Start small. First of all, don’t let the Kindergarten name fool you: crafts are hard. Moreover, they tend to activate what I like to call my Toddler Energy, where I get really into them for oh, an hour or so. Then my eyes glass over and I get distracted by popcorn and one of the cats and the next thing I know, there are 27 half-made, sparkly Eiffel Tower support beams, but there’s not more creative energy to be found, no matter where I look. {Not even under the couch, or in my bed, where I often find a nap instead.}
Miss French Fries over on WeddingBee really summed it up nicely in her phenomenal post: How to Create Your Own Wedding Decor, in 27 Easy Steps! It’s so easy to get started, it’s harder to coast once you’ve ruined half the flowers you intended to make, and you have ribbon somehow glued to your forehead {where the hell did that even come from? You don’t even remember cutting any ribbon…}
Set yourself up for success. Let your first craft project be a simple one. You’ll get through it, hopefully with all your fingers, and you’ll feel like the true DIY DemiGoddess you really are! And — and this is the important part– you’ll be under budget.
Before we jump right in {put those scissors down; I can see you there, with fire in your eyes, just looking for something to cut into tiny pieces and decoupage back together}… Before we get started, there’s another DIY Article that I think you should take a look at. It’s by Design Guru Amy Beth Cupp Dragoo, who is not only a creative genius, she’s also a truly exceptional human being, full of warmth and talent and charm. What she speaks to, and the really important take-away for us DIY Brides, is the fact DIY doesn’t mean Duplicate-It-Yourself. There is a huge difference between playing Monkey-See-Monkey-Do and creating personal decor for your wedding day. Get inspired. Read the instructions. But be sure to make it your very own.
And, on that note, without further ado, I present to you: Dogwood/Cherry/Little Pink Flowery Blossoms.
The original idea for these flowers came from the book Playing With Booksby Jason Thompson. The idea is to repurpose old storybook paper into fabulous crafts that you can then use to decorate your home. I was desperately searching for a pretty flower that would be small enough to work in the groomsmen’s boutonnieres.
Playing with Books had a craft project that looked easy enough, and like it might work for the project. So I bought it. It looks like this:
{Image via Rag & Bone Blog}
Now, yes, the idea is to make the craft out of storybook paper. But I’m a nerd, so the idea of chopping up books makes me nervous. I fully intended to use the 16-week subscription I ordered of the Wall Street Journal, back when I was vowing to become a more globally-conscious person. They’re all sitting, still in their plastic wrappers, waiting for me to “do” something with them.
Alas– newspaper was too flimsy for this project. And drawing paper {from a standard drawing pad} was too heavy. It didn’t bend the way I needed it to without doing this horrible creasing thing. This morning, determined to get it right, I rounded up every supply that I thought I would ever possibly need for the project {yes, yes I did completely disregard the directions, but hey… I was making it my own}.
All you really need for this project: Tissue Paper, Floral Wire, a very small bit of Craft Glue, and some clear tape. If you’re going to color your flowers, either watercolor paint or chalk. And, of course, chocolate and wine. Oh, right… and scissors.
From there on out, it was pretty simple:
For this project, I think I just used the white tissue paper that came in an Aerie purchase I made at the mall last week. I started by folding the sheet in half {long-way} and cutting it into strips. Then, I cut those longer strips in half, on the crease from the first fold. I did that for about 2/3 of the sheet.
For the last bottom bit of the sheet, I cut bigger strips {about double the size} and then cut those into four pieces {shown above, the little squares}. I snipped the floral wire until it was 3′-4′ long. Don’t let the ruler fool you. I didn’t measure a single thing for this project. But hey! Doesn’t it look fancy?
Right! Now. Take one of those fat little squares, and crinkle it into a small ball. Find a little spot where it looks like the floral wire might feel at home, and dab just a touch of glue in there
OK. The little squares of paper: You now have your glue-filled-crinkly-paper ball. Find one of the pieces of floral wire {it’s probably on the floor. Your cat is probably chewing it. No, not that cat. Your other cat. Theeere you go}. This photo is deceptive: I actually stuck the little balled up piece of paper to the wire before I tented the flat square of paper over it. Then I twisted the flat paper around, until it made a little Stamen for my paper flower, like so. I secured it with a full piece of tape, but found out later that if you cut the tape in half, so you have a longer, skinnier piece, you’re a lot less likely to tape yourself to your own project. ** Please Note: If you push too hard on the floral wire and poke a hole in the top of the stamen, your flower isn’t ruined. You can’t see the middle at the end of the project. This is more to give the petals something to grab onto.
You’re a total rockstar! Give yourself a small pat on the back, take a swig of wine and a bite of cookie. Mint Chocolate Cookies are ideal for this project.
Feel refreshed? Great. Now grab one of your long, skinny strips of tissue paper and snip arbitrarily, every 3/4″ or so. Tall, skinny petals are better than short, fat petals, though. They’re easier when we get to the “fluffing” phase.
Next, round the tips of the little fringes, so they look like petals. Vary height and taper to your fancy.
If you’re going to color your petals, it’s now or never. I wasn’t sure what I was going to use to color mine, but I knew they needed to be light pink. I tried chalk {per the book’s recommendation, but was nervous that it would transfer onto my girls’ navy dresses}, watercolor paint and acrylic paint.
Chalk, Watercolor, Acrylic: Acrylic was disqualified immediately because, well… it looked like I spilled old Pepto onto my project. I ended up really liking the chalk, and it didn’t smudge off, but I ended up going with the watercolor because I really liked that I could control the intensity of the hue much more acutely, and more easily. I used, literally, a very small dab, and diluted it in a tea-saucer of water. And don’t tell my mother in law, because she’d die if she knew I used a tea saucer for a paint project.
Now, it mentions stating here, separately, that if you’re going to use watercolors, you should understand two things. 1. It’s going to show through. 2. It’s better if you watercolor over paper that will absorb the excess. Because the tissue paper I used was so thin, and the watercolors were so diluted, the paper got really delicate when I painted it. I managed that, along with the runny mess of excess diluted paint, by painting over a blank sheet of drawing paper {the rest of the sheet from the strip that I used to determine that drawing paper was absolute crap for this project}.
Once I painted each petal {gently, with a No. 9 round, pointy brush} I would lift it off the drawing paper {so that it wouldn’t stick as it dried} and laid it back down. sometimes, if it stuck to the paper again, I’d flip it over. I’m not sure if it helped or not, but in my mind it did, and anyway… no petals stuck to the paper. So there you go, I am a genius.
Once you’ve lightly colored all your petals, put another small dab of Craft Glue on the stamen. Gently place the petal-strip on the glue. Then don’t touch it. This is going to be the toughest part, because you’re going to want to see if it’s dry. It’s not. It’s not dry, and if you touch it, you’re going to ruin it. So don’t touch it. Go eat another cookie or something. Let. It. Dry.
Once it’s dry — you touched it, didn’t you? You totally did. It’s OK… I did, too– you simply roll it up, around the stem. Now. Here’s the catch. All my petals kept lining up with one another. I was going to have a whole handful of lopsided flowers. So every now and then, I’d cheat. I’d either fold petals backwards, to cover gaps aruond the stem, or I’d put little “darts” in the bottom of them, like when you’re trying to pin a shirt to fit around your chest. Use your discretion, but don’t hesitate to pinch the petals and fold the petals and re-fold the petals until you think that you’ll get a good, full flower when you “fluff” them out. {You’ll see what I mean in a second.} Once you’re satisfied with your petal distribution, secure the bottom with clear tape. I found it best to put a corner on the loose edge of the petals I just wrapped, and to pull the tape around the stem in the same direction I was just wrapping. It gave a secure, seamless fastening.
Top view of your wrapped-but-un-fluffed flower.
Now it’s time to “fluff”. Starting with the outermost petal, gently pull the petal back away from the stem, flipping it against the natural curve of the paper. It’s like flipping it inside out. Work your way through all the petals until you find yourself at the middle again. {Try to do them in order. If you go out of order, sometimes they flip themselves back; sometimes they just rip.} Once you’re done flipping, take another swig of wine and admire your work!
Top View of Fluffed Flower. They’re just really pretty, and really delicate.
I wasn’t ready to make the rest of the boutonnieres, because The Groom said he wanted a vote in the color of the pinwheels, so the completed project will be here for you next week. In the meantime, these little beauties are going to keep me company at my desk, as I revel in how awesomely crafty I am. I heartily suggest you do the same!
So there you have it, a great little starter project for the DIY Bride who’s a little intimidated by this crazy, sparkly, glittery Wedding World.
Feel free to ask any questions, and PLEASE if you try this project at home, let me know how it worked for you! I’d love to see your variations, your input, your finished products! Until next week, go add a little sparkle to the world around you, you saucy minxes. And don’t forget– we’re all in this together!
RAWR.
