How to Make Paper Flowers: An Easy DIY Craft!
Learn how to make three different flower shapes using crepe paper streamers for a savvy and customizable wedding decor project!
This post features another great DIY tutorial in collaboration with our friend Brandi of Alexis June Weddings!
Learning how to make paper flowers is a DIY project that could easily translate to any type of event like a bridal shower, wedding, bridesmaids luncheon, etc! And since I’m desperately yearning for springtime, this gorge paper flowers DIY project takes on a very springlike vibe — hope you love them!
First off, we’re starting with fun crepe paper flowers — within this post, you’ll see a few different techniques that we used to make these paper flowers.
Of course, you can always use different colors to match the color scheme you’re working with. We just hope that these projects serve to inspire you and empower you to try to do things yourself if it’s a fit for your wedding. Without further ado…
How to Make Paper Flowers: DIY Crepe Paper Flower Tutorials
Supplies:
- crepe paper
in assorted colors - floral wire
- scissors
- floral tape (optional)
in assorted colors
Fringe Dandelion Crepe Paper Flowers DIY
1. Start by cutting a strip of crepe paper streamer about 1 ft long.
2. Use your scissors to cut tiny fringe into the streamer, stopping your cuts with about 1/4 of the paper left. Cut fringe all the way down the length of your streamer. This will take a bit of time and is somewhat tedious. If you want to make it faster, you could try out a pair of scissors like these Martha Stewart Crafts Fringe Scissors that make multiple cuts at once!
3. Once you’ve got your completed fringe streamer, you can start rolling it up to create your flower. Carefully begin by rolling the paper up and pinching it as you go on the non-fringed end. Roll the entire length of paper together into a flower.
Crafty tip:
Depending on your paper, you might notice as you roll that at some point the flower becomes unmanageable. Feel free to tear the excess off there. If the flower becomes too thick and hard to keep together, you will have a difficult time wrapping it in wire to hold it together.
4. Once you’ve got your flower to an appropriate size, you can fluff the fringe a little bit — see? Now it’s starting to look like a dandelion.
5. Pinch the end of your flower tightly. Crepe paper is very malleable and pinching it will help it to stay together.
6. Cut a length of floral wire — about 12-18 inches in length.
7. Fold the floral wire in half.
8. Use the floral wire to wrap around the base of your flower — pull it and pinch it tightly to hold.
9. Once you’ve got your wire secured around your flower base (this can take a bit of finesse and playing with it) you can then bend the rest of your floral wire down — this will be your stem. Fold the floral wire back up into itself — you should have at least 4 passes of the wire to give you a thicker and more sturdy base for your flower.
10. Next, take a green streamer and cut a length of about 12 inches, then cut the streamer in half length-wise, so you have two thin streamers. Set one aside for later.
11. Start by taking your green streamer and covering up the top of your wire at the base of the flower you created. Carefully wrap the crepe paper over itself, being sure to pinch and pull the paper taught as you go. Again, crepe paper is very malleable and forgiving, so play around with it! It’s actually pretty difficult to “mess up.”
12. Once you’ve got your entire stem covered, you can either tape it off with floral tape (optional) or just pinch it tightly. It should hold without any need for other adhesives. Voila!! Such a cute dandelion flower!
Simple Twist Crepe Paper Flowers DIY
1. Start by cutting a 12-inch length of colored crepe paper.
2. Next, you’ll cut a pattern of your choice into your paper streamer. For this paper flower, I did a hump / rounded mountain shape all along the length of the streamer. This will be the petal shape of your flower.
3. After you’ve got your petals complete, you can create the middle part of your flower. Cut a 4-inch piece of yellow paper, and then another 1-2 inch piece.
4. Take the smaller piece and roll it into a ball. Place the balled-up paper in the middle of the larger piece you cut, and then twist the larger piece around it, creating a “bulb” shape.
Pro tip:
Be sure to twist the tail of the bulb shape — you’ll need this to use as a base when you wrap the petals.
5. Start wrapping your petals around the bulb shape, being sure to begin by overlapping the crepe paper onto the tails of your bulb.
6. Just twist the streamer petals around your bulb, pinching as you go.
At the end, you’ll have a nice flower shape – voila! You can fluff and adjust the petals a bit here.
Follow the same process of steps 6-12 above: wrapping the wire around the flower and green paper around the stem to complete.
Daisy Shape Crepe Paper Flowers
1. Cut yourself five pieces of crepe paper about 5 inches long.
2. Take the first strip of crepe paper – twist it in the middle one turn, then fold the halves over on top of each other.
3. Take the unfolded “tails” and twist them together to create a petal shape.
4. Repeat this process with the remaining 4 strips that were cut.
5. Next, you’ll create another “bulb” shape by cutting a long and short piece of yellow crepe paper.
6. Roll up the smaller piece into a ball, then put it into the larger piece and twist it until you have your bulb.
7. Then, you’ll be able to attach your petals to your bulb. Arrange each petal into a daisy shape, being careful to hold them tightly together.
Once you’ve got a shape you like, you can attach them officially with floral wire.
8. Repeat the process in the previous steps to attach the wire to the base of your flower in steps 6-12 above. I found if you put the flower face down on the table as you attach your wire to the base of the flower, it makes it a little easier to handle.
Once you’ve got the flower secured with the wire you can fluff it out a bit.
Then, you will wrap the stem just like in the previous crepe paper flowers until it’s completely covered.
We created a mixture of different crepe paper flower designs to show how simple and sweet they look all grouped together! You can totally change the look by changing the colors of the crepe paper you use for your flowers, so choose crepe paper to fit your wedding color scheme!
You could also make tissue paper flowers for a variation in texture!
We displayed our completed flowers in tiny jam jars — a simple and inexpensive centerpiece idea.
I imagine scattering a set of 3 of these on a large table with a larger element in the middle, or even having a row of these tiny paper arrangements down a long reception table, so as not to take up lots of space.
I just think these crepe paper flowers are so darling and adorable — and when you change up the colors the possibilities are truly endless!
I hope you’ve loved this DIY tutorial on how to make paper flowers! Would you consider making crepe paper flowers for your wedding?
Savvy Tip!
My biggest tip or suggestion would be to start EARLY. The materials for this project are incredibly inexpensive (about .99 cents for a roll of crepe paper and we could’ve easily made 20 – 30 flowers out of each roll) but what this project will definitely cost you is time. If you’re game to try it out, maybe invite your best gals over for craft nights while you watch The Bachelor. 😉
Special Thanks to Brandi Webb of Alexis June Weddings for the beautiful photos in this post.
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