Quarantine Crafts with Mary S

Welcome back! I’ve really discovered through these craft projects that I find a lot of comfort in paper crafting. Does my house need anymore paper craft decorations? Absolutely not. Have I enjoyed putting in headphones and disappearing into a paper craft for a few hours each day during quarantine? Absolutely yes. So for this week’s craft (I’m sure you can see where this is going) I chose paper craft flowers!

All you have to do is google “diy paper flowers” and your search results will be pages upon pages of different options. I picked a few I liked best and I’ll recreate them here for you. Origami is not something I ever truly explored before but I’ve always been a little fascinated in how a piece of paper can turn into something three dimensional and beautiful in just a few folds. Here are the flowers I made; I will show you how to make the blue, orange and purple flowers but you can find the instructions for the green flower, and many other types online.

Materials I used:

• Colored paper – cut to any square size you like – the bigger the square the bigger the flower
• Scissors and/or rotary cutter/paper cutter if you have one
• Glue – I used a glue stick, liquid glue and a hot glue gun
• Ruler or straight edge

Let’s start with the purple rose — this one is the easiest of the three in my opinion.

Step 1: Start with 4 equal size square pieces of paper. My squares are 5 inches. In picture 1 on the right you will see how to fold each square into a triangle. Fold the square so two opposite corners meet creating a diagonal crease through the center of the square. Now fold the bottom point up to meet the top point creating a crease through the center of the triangle. Repeat that fold again to create a smaller triangle.

Step 2: Find the closed side, or the hinge, of the folded triangle and draw a petal shape across the wide part as seen in picture 2. Cut from the open edge of the triangle to the closed edge. Use this as a template for the remaining 3 triangles and cut those out as well. Once those are cut out you’ll want to just barely cut off the bottom point so when you unfold the triangle there is a small hole in the middle as seen in picture 3.

Step 3:  Now you will need to cut petal sections from each piece to make enough layers for the rose. Follow picture 4 and cut 1 petal from one piece, two petals from another, 3 petals from the third and the 4th one you will cut in half and toss one half to the side — we won’t use that.

Step 4: Starting with the largest section you will want to put glue on one end piece and glue it to the back of the other end piece (picture 5) making a cone shape. Repeat this for each section UNTIL the two smallest sections. As seen in picture 6 you will only put glue on half of a petal and adhere that to only half of the other section. I used a pencil for the smallest section to get the cone shape and to hold the edges together while the glue dried. Using that same pencil I curled the top of the cones to create a more petal like shape shown in pictures 7 & 8.

Step 5: To finish the rose you will glue and nest each cone starting with the largest which does not get glue. I used a dollop of hot glue on the point of the cone and nestled it into the other cone holding it in place until the glue dried so it stayed centered and didn’t slide to the side. Continue this until the smallest cone is in place and now you’re finished!

Next is the blue flower. My squares for this flower were 4 inches and you will need 8 total.

Step 1:  Fold the square from corner to corner twice so you have two diagonals going through the center of the paper — picture 2. Flip the paper over so those creases open up to the table surface and fold the paper in half horizontally– picture 3.

 

Step 2: Open the fold and turn the paper so the horizontal crease is now vertical. Fold the top two corners down to the center crease — picture 4. Following the center vertical crease fold the entire paper in half — picture 5.

 

Step 3: Here is where it gets tricky and I’ll do my best to explain! Turn the paper so the point is pointing to the left and hold that part with your left hand — picture 6. You should see a “V” in the middle of the paper. Using your right hand pinch the base of the right side of the “V” and push the paper in to the center to create almost a bowl like you see in picture 7. Keep pushing the paper in until the bowl is closed and fold the pieces pointing directly at you and away from you to the right so everything lays flat again as seen in picture 8.

Step 4: Fold the points you just created down so you are left with an upside down triangle as seen in pictures 9 & 10. Unfold those points a bit to create wings — picture 11. The wings are the key to attaching each “petal” to the other. Position your paper so the wings are facing flat towards you — picture 12 — and tuck the point of one wing inside the opening of another petal’s wing.

Step 5: Continue connecting each petal by tucking the wings into the wings of the next making sure you’re pushing them all the way in so the folds of the wings touch — picture 13. The hardest wings to connect were the last two to make a full circle of petals — picture 14. The internet told me once all the petals were connected the flower would lay beautifully perfect and flat and I’d be finished. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen for me as seen in picture 15. I had my son hold the flower flat and used a bit of hot glue in the center of the flower so it would hold it’s shape — picture 16. I added some sequins later to cover up the hot glue.

Now your flower is finished! Play around with alternating colors and different items for the center of your flower — I wanted a button in the middle but couldn’t find any. I did find sequins in my late Nana’s sewing boxes I inherited that worked perfectly. Thanks Nana!

 

 

Finally, the orange flower. This flower I found easier to do than the blue flower. Even though there are more folds, there isn’t any tricky tucking and connecting of pieces. The squares I used were 4 inches and you will need 8. I used a glue stick for this flower.

Step 1: Fold from corner to corner twice so you have two intersecting diagonals through the center of the paper — pictures 1 & 2. Fold on one of the creases so you have an upside down triangle in front of you — picture 3. Fold the left and right corners down to the bottom point of the triangle with the top fold meeting in the center — picture 4.

 

Step 2: Fold each point back up so the center fold meets the outer fold creating wings — picture 5. Open the wings and fold the middle triangle up so the point meets the top of the center crease of the paper — pictures 6 & 7. Unfold so you have a large triangle again and using the center crease fold the entire thing in half — picture 8.

 

 

 

Step 3: Making sure the closed fold edge is on the left and the unfolded wings are on the top, fold the bottom triangle up so the left fold edge meets the crease on the top — picture 9. Flip the whole thing over and fold that same flap back the other way — picture 10. Unfold to the main triangle again and all of the folds should have made creases to look like picture 11. Pick the whole triangle up and pinch where all of the creases meet by the bottom point. The wings will be on top and it should look almost bird-like with a beak created from pinching the paper — picture 12.

 

 

Step 4: Fold the bird beak back on itself so it tucks into the body of the triangle — picture 13. Glue the wings together where they touch ONLY until the first crease — picture 14 shows the area you should put glue on. Picture 15 shows what the petal will look like once it is glued. Once you have all 8 petals folded and glued to this point you can start connecting them. Put glue on the bottom triangle of each petal shown in picture 16 and lay them on top of each other in one stack.

 

 

Step 5: Once all the petals are glued together and in a straight line — shown below — you can glue the end petals together. I used my fingers to open up the tips of the petals for a more open look. This completes the flower! I liked the look of the sequins in the center on the blue flower so i did the same here, although it wasn’t structurally necessary like before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you enjoy making these! The green flower is super, super simple so I won’t give you written instructions but I did take pictures of my process so I’ll add them down below in case you want to try. These flowers are great to put in windows to add some color and cheer for everyone taking walks around their neighborhoods. You might see these at the library once we are able to reopen! I know this was a long craft post this week so if you’ve made it this far, thank you, thank you, thank you!