How to: Make a Valentine Rose Bouquet with Recycled Paper

Posted by Caley on January 13th, 2010 at 11:28am

Still have scraps of paper leftover from the holidays? If you didn’t follow my guide for recycling wrapping paper scraps into homemade paper, I have another idea for you. Valentine’s Day is coming up and you might want to give a bouquet of roses to someone special or decorate your home with a nice red bouquet. Unfortunately, fresh cut flower bouquets are very expensive, especially on Valentine’s Day, and often have unfortunate consequences for the environment. Instead of spending the money on fresh cut flowers, use leftover paper from around your house, even holiday wrapping paper, to create a bouquet of paper roses. Here’s how to create paper roses:

Paper Flower/Paper Roses Tutorial

Materials:

• Paper- Use leftover red wrapping paper to create roses. Solid reds or red metallic papers look best, but you can have fun making a bouquet of multicolored flowers too.
• Pencil
• Glue
• Scissors
• Wire (optional but recommended)
• Green Floral Table (optional but recommended)

Instructions:

If you don’t want to purchase wire and floral tape, or have none around your home, you can create flower stems by rolling up lengths of paper very tightly. Though, wire and green floral tape are more convenient and will look better for a bouquet. The floral tape will also help secure the bottom of the paper petals so your flowers are a little sturdier. There are two techniques to creating the paper flowers:

Technique 1

To create the petals, trace rose petal shapes from the edge of the paper (like a bell shape with a narrower bottom) and cut out with your scissors. The petals do not have to be perfect or matching. Crumble the petals to make the paper more pliable. Select one petal for the center of your flower and roll up the petal from the bottom to create a bloom shape. Add a dot of glue to hold the petal in this shape. Once you have the center bloom, the rest is easy. Continue to wrap petals around the center bloom, layering the petals as you get bigger. You can position the petals so that the bud is more closed or more open, depending on how you arrange the petals. To create a curved petal that opens out, simply pinch the bottom of the petal to create a small fold. Experiment with what looks best. When you are happy with the size of your rose, dab glue onto the end of your wire and insert into the bottom of the flower. Wrap the bottom of the flower and the wire with the floral tape. You can also use green scrapbook paper or card stock to add leaves to your paper flowers.

Technique 2

This is an even easier way to create paper roses. Cut out a square of paper and draw a spiral from the center all the way around to the outside. Do not make the lines of the spiral too close together. Cut out spiral of paper. Make small dots of glue at each end of the spiral and along the length. Roll up the paper spiral tightly from the outside. Attach to wire as normal.

Tags: flowers, recycling, thrifty, Valentine's Day

Under Valentine's Day Tags: flowers, recycling, thrifty, Valentine's Day