Paper Flowers

Hey SaMiE Designs Fans! My sister, Kris, who lives across the country from me recently posted pictures of this craft on her facebook page. I commented that I would love, if she were willing, for her to write a guest post about the craft.
 (P.S. If you are interested in guest posting, please send me an email at campbells.jacksonhole@gmail.com)


She responded that she would be glad to. (Even re-doing the craft so she could take step by step instructions for your viewing pleasure!) So I'm going to hand it over to my Sister now. Don't forget to show her some comment love!

This paper flower design is fun and so thrifty! All you really need are a few pieces of paper and some glue.  I  got the idea from a little video I saw on yahoo called Valentine's Day Paper Flowers. Since we were decorating our work for the holiday I decided to make a few for our kitchen table.  

The first set of paper flowers we made.

They turned out so cute and were so easy to do I couldn't wait to share this project with the kids.   Here is a little step by step on how we made a "Bunch of Flowers."

Step 1, part. 1

1)  Get a few pieces of paper:  (I've used several types: construction paper, scrap book paper, even a paper gift bag with a funky design worked great.)  Cut out four to six equal sized squares.  Here's Amber (age 7) excited to make flowers for her teacher.

Step 2, part. 2

2)   Take one of your squares and fold the bottom up to make a triangle.  (if it's a little uneven you can trim it up)

Step 2: Folding the square into a triangle

 3) Take each bottom corner of the Triangle and fold up to the middle tip, you should end up with a Kite or Diamond shape.  

Step 3: Folding the Triangle Into a Kite

4)  Take each "kite flap" and fold in half length wise. You'll end up with this Flat Flower.

Step 4: The Flat Flower.

5)  I have no idea how to explain in writing how to do this next part so bare with me (or see above link to the yahoo video).   Take each of your Flat Flower "petals", there will be a little pocket, place your finger in the pocket and gently pull towards yourself and flatten back out, exposing the crease and doubling the size of the petal. 

Step 5: Little tricky, keep practicing & you'll get it in no time!

6) Fold the tips of your petals down to make a flush line.

Step 6: These folded flaps eventually become the center of your finished flower

7) Fold your petals back inwards towards the center.

Step 7: Folding your petals back

8)  Time to get your glue! (I've used tape...wouldn't recommend it) Glue Gun worked best, However depending on the age of the maker and/or availability, glue stick works just fine and dries a little faster than say white glue (however with a glue stick I ended up having to use a little tape as back up). It's your call what works best for you and your family.  Here we used a glue stick.  So apply your chosen sticky element to one side of the Flat Flower and gently fold in half, the goal is to to leave it open, not creased.

Step 8

9) Repeat four times (or six if you were going for a bigger flower) You'll end up with these. 

Step 9

10) Now it's time to build the real deal! Using your glue attach the pieces at the narrowest point, being careful to leave a little opening in the bottom to slide a pipe cleaner or twig through if you want a stem.

Fun it up!! You can add all kinds of things to make this flower truly Unique.  Pretty Gems, tissue paper, pom pom's, stickers..the sky's the limit.  For these flowers we taped pieces of Starburst candy in the middle for that extra bit of fun.  

Happy Creating!

Here's the one made out of the gift bag.

(since the paper was a little slick the glue stick wouldn't work, we had to use a glue gun)