Whimsical Tissue Paper Flowers

             After taking a roadtrip for two weeks and returning home to begin immediately searching for a job (remember? My book store job closed, so sad! But life marches on) I have been swamped and unable to bring you any tutorials! I am now preparing for my very FIRST craft selling event (and it's for a great cause! Go check out the Toco Festival in Jellystone Park!) and I'm totally excited and TOTALLY scrambling to make sure my friend and I have enough items to sell. So, unfortunately I'm leaving you AGAIN without a tutorial. Instead I leave you with a fun concept and I'm sure all you crafty  whips out there can figure out where I am going with this ;) .

                  

Originally, I had a photo of the inspiration craft on here but I removed it because I did not have permission to use the photo, so to be safe I removed it. Sorry for any confusion!

  

My craft today is inspired by some browsing through Pinterest, where I found a wonderful tutorial on oversized, dreamy tissue paper flowers, and you can find the tutorial for them at Design Sponge. They are made by a company called Ruche, and they gave a great description on how to make them, but I wanted to make them for a window display and didn't want to get into chicken wire and cement (I tend to injure myself with chicken wire, and I get REAL messy with cement!). My budget was also...well, pretty much nothing. More or less, I had about $6 and whatever items I could find on hand. 

See? There's even a pile of junk sitting on the floor around my pretty flowers (and by junk I mean supplies I thought I might destroy to make more flowers!). 

To create my smaller scale version of those whimsical flowers:

For the flower stem:

Cut a piece of strong cardboard (I used a box that a shelf came in) into a slightly curved shape as "tall" as you want your flower to be. The flowers shown here are actually about 3 feet tall, and the curve just adds a bit of dimension to the shape. Then take either another piece of long cardboard or use poster board  (about 5 inches shorter than the curved piece) and bend into a "triangle" shape to add stability and dimension (You can see the straight line down the middle of the pink flower- this is the poster board). Hot glue that to the curved piece of cardboard, starting at the part that you will use as the top. 

Take a smaller piece of cardboard, about 5 inches in height by about 4-5 inches wide. Cut a slit in the bottom of the curved cardboard piece, and slide the 5x5 inside to use as a bottom stablizer (you may want to trim this to be wider at the bottom as a triangle shape to give a more natural flower stem shape). 

Take 2 toilet paper rolls as cut them in half. Then cut a piece of posterboard big enough to fit the curved board, the 5x5 board, and the now 4 pieces of toilet paper tube (one on each side of the stem). Hot glue this poster board to the bottom of everything, creating a base for the flower. Use heavy paper (I used tightly rolled newspaper) or another weighted agent and fill the toilet paper rolls. Make sure the rolls are also glued to the cardboard flower stem. 

For the Flower:

Cut a piece of poster board in an oval roughly the size of your hand (maybe a little bigger, depending on the flower size). Hot glue that to the top of the flower stem. This is now the base of your flower. Cut out large, tear drop shaped "petals" and hot glue them to the base as you desire. 

To finish it off:

Wrap the flower stem in green tissue, making sure to tuck loose tissue paper ends away if you can, then hot glue on  nice, big, loose leaves for added whimsy.

                            

DIY Make A Coffee Filter Glamelia

                Have you heard about glamelias? If you're on Pinterest and have lots of engaged friends (Like I do) or many wedding interested friends, glamelias have made quite the comeback in the past few years. A real glamelia (which I have also seen labeled as a composite rose, among other names) is many, many flowers (usually roses) taken apart and then oh, so delicately pieced back together around one main flower to form a breath taking, beautiful piece of bouquet art. These were very popular in the 40's and made to resemble those pretty camellia flowers. If you want some examples of glamelias made with real flowers, there are some lovely ones pictured on  Blossom Floral Design 's website.
            A friend of mine pinned a boatload of links to these one day and I was completely intriqued. How on earth did they make something so beautiful without destroying the petals? I explored the web (at this point I wanted to make one because I love a challenge and pretty things) but after searching I realized no, using real flowers is just beyond my skill set at this point. I had many reasons:

• I do not have much patience
• 
  
• I do not have the gentle touch of an experienced florist (or a freelance or amateur or a floral hobbyist
• 
  
• I do not have enough money to rip apart piles of flowers in the name of a "test project" 

        To all of you out there who can make one with real flowers, I envy you and tip my hat to you. For real, they are absolutely lovely. I may someday try this with gladiola because they have those big billowy petals and that seems more manageable to me. Until I get comfortable with the process, though, I'm using coffee filters. There is a seriously awesome tutorial on Natural Beauties Floral.com for the real flower, so I modified it a bit with my fake petals.

Here is how I made my "Glamelia":

  

1. 

   Step 3

   

   Step 4

   Gather Supplies: Coffee filters, sharp scissors, floral tape, floral wire, pliers 
2. Make the Center Rose: Since I don't want to make two tutorials in one, I'm going to redirect you to good ol' Martha Stewart because her web page has a wonderful, easy to follow rose tutorial. This is where I originally learned to make a paper rose, but I didn't follow it exactly this time around: I only had the "wiggly" coffee filters, which are flimsier but I used them anyway because this was an experiment. I took my filters and flattened them out, and they laid pretty nicely. Also, I did not measure my petals I just sort of "winged it" because I have made coffee filter roses previously and have a pretty good idea of what I should make. Lay this aside and grab a piece of wire.
3. Weave petals onto second wire. I put 6 petals on each piece of wire initially. I folded the end 1/4 inch to avoid losing my petals off the other side (*I changed this as I went. I decided to tightly wrap the second wire around the center for more stability*). 
4. Securely attach the second wire to the center rose wire. Twist up a few times, then begin placing the second wire petals against the center rose. When all petals are placed, twist the remaining second wire down the center rose wire, and then secure it with floral tape. 
5. Layer, layer, layer. I initially started out adding 6 petals then wrapping the remaining wire around the "center rose" wire...grabbing another one and starting again. As the hours past (yes, hours, not agonizing hours I was just doing other things and kept layering and layering...) I would add 6, wrap the wire around the center once, add 4-6 more to the same wire, THEN wrap that one. **I probably would have been more affective making it "wider" by attaching the wires in a big circle with the petals THEN wrapping it around the center wire. Mine ended up being very...tall...because I had to keep wrapping farther down the center wire (you know, because the middle was getting so big) so next time I'll just make the wires get bigger with it!

Glamelia progress shots

       6.  Use pliers to pin down any loose wire ends, then floral tape thoroughly from top to bottom.  At this point I also added a festive brown leather strip wrapped around it for added charm and stability.

Wire ends secured, wrap the stem with floral tape then add decor of choice

I didn't keep track of how many petals I made, filters I used, and all that jazz, but I would say there were at least 80 added on top of the center rose, probably more. 

To take away from the starch white-ness of my cheap coffee filters, I watered down some pink and white craft paint together and doused the petals with it, then added some more pink coloring to the edges of the petals. Mine looked cheesy because I wasn't being careful, but you can add some serious color to coffee filter roses that way.

      I hope to make a bigger, more spectacular one next time, but practice makes perfect! That's why I shared this tutorial, so you can ALL practice and we can all get better...together! If you have any questions, comments, or you make one of these yourself, I'd love to know. Just drop me a comment! Thank you so much for stopping by. =)