‘For it is in giving, that we receive’ – St.Francis of Assisi

The Festive Season is coming soon. I love to select Gifts, wrap them up with fancy wrapping, add a small hand written note; thus making it special. Everyone likes to feel loved. Sometimes a thoughtful gesture and a little extra touch can bring so much joy. Today I’m sharing a very easy method to craft simple ‘Paper Flowers’. These flowers look pretty on Greeting Cards, Gift Tags or as Fancy Gift Wraps. Alternatively I have even used these to decorate Paper Bags, Pen Stands and even my School Projects. It takes just about 10mins to make these and the material required is usually available at home or can be easily purchased. You may creatively use materials from whatever is available to you, no need to buy anything.

Materials Required:

1) Sheets of Coloured Paper – Ready Packs of Coloured Paper for Crafting OR Printed Paper from discarded magazines OR Used Wrapping Paper ; As long as the Paper is foldable. Laminated thick sheets won’t work. Ready Packets are available as A4 or Square Paper Sheets in various colours.

2) Glue, Scissors and a Pencil

Optional Decorations

3) Paper Strips ( from a shredding machine) or Ready Paper Quilling Strips [Optional]

4) Embellishments [Optional]

5) Markers and Colours for any additional creativity [Optional]

Making the Flowers :-

Take a square sheet of Paper. Fold at mid length along the dotted lines as shown in the picture. Once again fold along the dotted line to get a folded square. Next fold matching opposite corners to get a triangle. Last fold, fold the triangle into half at the dotted line as shown. Draw and mark the shape of the Petal and cut along the blue dotted line.

Please note the centre of the paper being folded becomes the pivot and centre of the flower. So all folds are made accordingly. Look at the reference picture below for help. It is shown as a green dot reference. Open up the Flower once it is cut. Make more flowers smaller and smaller each time. Layer them by placing one inside another.

Apply glue as a dot only at the centre to stick the flowers. Add a paper dot in the centre of the flower using a quilled circle or a punch hole from paper or an embellishment. Cut Leaves. I have shown two-three different leaves. Choose the ones you feel are easy. Arrange all this with optional decorations on your base Paper.

Special Tip: It is always a good idea to make a bunch of flowers and leaves in odd numbers. Example 3 Flowers -5 leaves. It looks more natural.

Making it colourful and neat is more important. One does not require too much precision in this. Someone without much practice will also be able to make a flower as pretty as another. Anything natural is not perfectly in a line. The beauty lies in the imperfections. Creatively I used the extra crumbs from discarded cutouts of this paper as confetti in the background. It looks better when the background is complete. Go ahead try these and let me know if you enjoyed. Have a Crafty Weekend!