Handmade Flower Bouquet Tutorial

Handmade Flower Bouquet

My mother loves flowers and I made this bouquet of handmade flowers for her 67th birthday which we celebrated just a few days back.Red is her favourite colour and I used 2 shades of red punch-craft paper to make this handmade floral bouquet.

Porcelain Heart

The flower vase is a crystal glass filled with pearly white marbles and dressed up with a garland of pearls.The porcelain-like heart on the tag is handmade [Here is the tutorial: Embellishment tutorial ].

Handmade flower bouquet tutorial

Paper flower tutorial 

Materials Required to make the Paper Flowers

Paper – Chart paper or thin punch-craft paper is easiest to shape and layer to make the paper daisy flower in this tutorial .If you use cardstock you will have to spend more energy embossing the petals!
Paper Flowers- Die cut, punch or hand cut paper flowers . I used the Sizzix Bigz Tim Holtz Tattered flowers die and die cut 4 flowers at a time from thin punch-craft paper. I find this a big advantage while using BigZ dies compared to thin dies.Use 3 - 6 cut flowers to make a single paper flower.
Embossing tools – Use any rounded end  object you have – eg rounded end of a pen , clay modelling tool, parchment craft embossing tool, rounded end of a quilling tool or a proper punchcraft embossing tool.
Embossing Pad or Mouse pad –to shape the petals.
Flower Center Suggestions- Pearls, Glitter, Seed Beads,Quilled fringed flower,crepe paper ball or even a  pompom like I have used in this paper flower
Adhesive- White PVA glue [Fevicol MR is my favourite] to stick the flowers and a glue gun to stick the pompom.

Paper Flower tutorial

Paper flower tutorial

Place the flower on the mouse pad/ embossing pad and run the embossing tool from the tip of the flower petal to the base of the petal.If you emboss your petal from the outside to the inside it tends to curl the maximum!Different diameters of embossing tools will give a slightly different look to your embossed paper flower so do experiment to get the look you love the most!

Paper flower tutorial

Invert this cup type flower on the embossing pad and now emboss the center of the flower alone with a circular movement of your embossing tool to get a good cup shaped center.

Paper flower tutorial

Apply glue only to the center of the flower and stick at least 3 flowers in a staggering manner. Some of the handmade flowers in my bouquet have up to 6 layers of paper flowers

Handmade Paper Flowers

I experimented using different objects for the flower centers and found I loved the unique look of the sparkly black pompoms! If you have enough patience you can use regular white glue to stick the pompoms otherwise use the glue gun!!

How to make a handmade flowers bouquet

The paper flowers shown above were so easy to make that in no time I had a whole bunch to assemble into a handmade floral bouquet.To make the flower bouquet you can use

Handmade flower tutorial 

1. Stems – options are
   • Metal wires- thicker gauge is preferred so that they can take the weight of your flowers.
   • Wooden skewers like I used in the thermocol rose tutorial .
   • Readymade stem with branches like in the foam rose tutorial .
2. Floral tape 
3. Flower calyx
   • If your handmade flower has a flat base like my daisy here you need to make a calyx so that your flower sits prettily on your floral stem.I used 5 mm quilling strips and a slotted quilling tool to make the conical calyx for my paper daisy.
   • If your handmade flower has a pointed base like in my handmade  foam roses  you can insert the stem into the flower base and wrap a cut flower or star shape around it as a calyx.
4. Leaves – make your own wired leaves like in this Cala lily tutorial  or use ready-made paper or fabric leaves. I have used veined velvet leaves here.

How to make the Flower Calyx

Since many of my blog readers are not into quilling explaining the steps to make a quilled flower calyx.

Flower Calyx tutorial 

You can use 3 mm , 5mm or even 1cm width paper strips to make your flower calyx. I used a paper strip nearly 17 inches long [formed by gluing 2 quilling strips end to end].

Insert the end of the paper into a slotted quilling tool.[If you dont have one you can simply try rolling the paper strip around the wooden or metal wire you are going to use as your floral stem].Roll the quilling tool and use your fingers to help form the paper coil.

Flower tutorial 

Apply glue on the end of the paper strip,stick and complete your paper disc.

Handmade Flower tutorial 

Use a rounded object [I used the other end of my quilling tool] to shape your quilled paper disc into a bell shaped calyx.Just press in your rounded object into the paper disc in a circular movement going inwards from the periphery and you will form a cup shaped paper shape. This is a bit tricky if you are not used to it as you may get tents,volcanoes and mini monster shapes instead of bells and cups!It doesnt really have to be perfect!

Handmade flower tutorial 

Once you have a fairly decent conical shape insert your metal or wooden skewer into it as shown and push the paper cone right to the tip of your metal/wooden stick.Apply PVA glue or hot glue into the cup and stick your paper flower on it.Apply a bit of glue on your floral tape [always better unless your floral tape is nice and sticky] and wrap around your quilled paper calyx and down the wood/metal stem of your paper flower.
You can keep adding the wired leaves as you wrap the floral tape or add them later.

Handmade Flower Bouquet

I didnt have the right flower vase for my handmade paper floral bouquet so made one using a crystal glass [whose siblings had all broken!!] and pearly white marbles.

Handmade Flower Bouquet

The sparkling pompoms,the shiny marbles ,the white pearls and the porcelain heart makes my flower bouquet shimmer in the light.
I hope you like this simple handmade flower tutorial .Do tell me how you like it.
Here is the link to more Handmade flower tutorials