paper flowers, part ii

Well, it looks like my paper flowers posts are going to be a 3 or more part series. I’ll be an expert by the time I’m done!

Mike, astutely observed that the Brooklyn Brainery was giving a class on paper flower making and signed me right up.

here is the bouquet that i made!

Our instructor was the lovely Anna Olivia Grant. She led us through 4 flower-building techniques.

First was the accordion technique. This is the same way those big tissue poof balls you see all over the Martha Stewart website (and various wedding blogs) are made.

These blooms are only slightly larger than a golf ball and I’ll be the first to tell you that this method is MUCH better for larger flowers. …unless you have the patience of a Buddhist monk and the dexterity of a neurosurgeon…

The second method was the stack method. In the stack method you skewer several identically cut sheets with wire and then crumple upwards.

Here’s a great tutorial for the stack flower (with pictures) that the Brooklyn Brainery posted.

The third method is single petal. Yep, it means exactly what it says. Cutting and gluing each petal individually. The orange petals on this flower were done using this method.

the center of this flower was made with the next technique

The fourth and final method was wrapping streamers that we precut in a spiral around a central stem to create volume.

For your own flower-making pleasure, please click here for the totally adorable instructions that Anna drew out for us.

Tags: anna grant, brooklyn brainery, crafty, DIY, flowers, handmade, orange, paper, pink, purple, wedding