For our Alice in Wonderland wedding reception, we wanted to have flowers from our colour scheme in teapots for centrepieces; however, flowers are expensive and we're aiming for a budget-friendly celebration!
To counter this, my partner and I created 60 red, white, and black flowers out of cardstock. The project cost us less than $20 (not counting the cost of secondhand teapots).
What you will need:
- Thin cardstock in your wedding colours (each flower takes three squares of cardstock; for flowers the size in the photo use 12cm x 12cm)
- Buttons for flower centres
- Thin florist wire
- Glue
- Scissors
- Ruler
- Pair of needle nose pliers
STEP 1
Cut the cardstock into squares (we used 12cm x 12cm squares to make oversized flowers). Use the ruler to ensure they are all the same size. You will need three squares of card per flower, so make sure you have enough! We cut 180 squares (60 of each colour) to make 60 flowers (20 of each colour).
Step 2:
Take a square. Fold it in half corner to corner. And again. And again. Press down the creases firmly!
Step 3:
Unfold the piece of cardstock once, to get the medium sized triangle, and cut half a heart shape onto one side like in the above picture.
How to make paper flower bouquet from a French novel
Tribe member Jordan Roberts wrote a great tutorial on how to make your own paper flower bouquet, out of your favorite book.
Fold the cardstock again and cut the second half of the heart, mirroring the first.
Also, cut off the bottom tip off the heart (it makes attaching the wire much easier later).
Step 4:
When you unfold the piece of paper you will get a pretty flower shape. Use your scissors to cut slits in between each petal to approximately halfway toward the centre, using the creases you made earlier as a guide (this will make folding and gluing the flowers easier).
Do this all the way around the flower shape.
Step 5:
Repeat steps 2, 3 and 4 on two more pieces of card so you have three flower shapes. These will make your first flower!
Step 6:
Now we need to start cutting petals off the flower shapes. For the first flower shape, cut off one petal. For the second flower shape, cut off two petals. For the third, cut off three petals. You should end up with flower shapes with 7, 6, 5, 3, 2 and 1 petals.
The 2 and 1 petals aren't needed to make the flower, but what we did was cut the 2s into two seperate petals and then we had a large bag full of cardstock petals in our wedding colours for decorating the aisle or the reception tables!
Step 7:
Glue the ends of the 7, 6, 5 and 3 flower shapes together. Wait for them to dry.
Step 8:
Curl the ends of each petal down to make pretty flower layers.
We made all of our flowers in bulk, so we had a bag full of 240 curly flower layers!
Step 9:
Glue these layers inside each other, rotating them so the petals don't overlap too much.
Step 10:
Once the flower is dry, take a piece of florist wire that's at least 15cm long and bend it in half (to get a nice, tight bend use a pair of needle nose pliers). Slip the two pieces through a button, then push the wire through the hole in the centre of the flower. Bend the bottom of the wire out so that the flower and button don't slip around.
And that's all there is to it! It took us about 16 hours to make 60 flowers, and another 10 to make the smaller flowers for our bouquet and boutonnieres!
Adore this. It looks fabulous and seems so easy!
These look great! I already made my paper-and-buttons flower bouquet for my wedding, otherwise I would do these.
For anyone who’s interested: Since I made all these flowers, I made a mock-up centrepiece/table number: http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0w9qhTxdR1qgy2jqo1_500.jpg
I LOVE this! So glad i stumbled upon this :]
Those are darling! I like your theme too. “We’re all Mad here” sounds precisely what my day will be like in one way or another. 🙂
i love this i started doing paper flowers for my bouquets but then changed my mind- i did use paper flowers and feathers for the boutinneres 🙂 LOVE them & can’t wait to use them
Thanks for this post! I love this DIY project…going to get supplies now & do a couple! We are on a tight budget & I have been looking for litl DIY projects to help decorate my Reception venue & this is wonderful! I am having a Fall themed wedding with colors of chocolate brown,rust orange & champagne. I think flowers like these in those colors would be so pretty! Thanks! 🙂
I just made a couple with brown & burnt orange colors & it is SOOO cute! Thanks…going to put this on my list to do more for our decor! 🙂
Love these – I’m keen to keep away from fresh flowers (just a few) and love a diy project, I’m going to get some card tomorrow and give it a whirl!
Glad everyone is getting a kick out of these flowers! 🙂
I’m so in love with these. I actually went and made a couple just to sprinkle around my studio (you know… since I forget to water real plants…)
I absolutely LOVE how the paper flowers turned out. But the paper flower bridal bouquet with the addition of playing card paper flowers? Stellar!
Hi!
So cool flowers! I was wondering if you made the same thing with the deck of cards?
Thank you!
Yes, we used the same method in mini. We found that the playing cards were much easier to curl than the cardboard and held their shape really well. If you’re going to try something similar, try to find playing cards that aren’t painted – we used some of them first and found the paint flaked off around the creases.
I was set on having non-real flowers or something at my wedding. My first attempt–I was completely out of my league. These-perfect balance of flower vibe yet not really flowers and they are super easy to do, if a little time consuming. I have a bruise forming on my fingers from the scissors I was using. Also, because buttons aren’t really my jam, we’re doing them with small beads instead.
Question: How did you assemble yours into the bouquet? I’m having trouble figuring out how to keep them together. My current plan is to stick them in a foam ball thing and then attach it to a handle of some sort that they sell at Michaels. I’m open to suggestions though.