Today we will talk about single petal paper flowers! These flowers are more in depth than rolled paper flowers, but offer so many different design and decorating options. With one template, you can make flowers from 3″ to 24″ in diameter. Using small flowers would go great on a wall hanging for a nursury or larger flowers for a photography backdrop, and anything and everything in between! Let’s get started.
You will need:
1. Paper flower patterns. I used this bundle for these flowers.
2. Cardstock. I used this pack for my petals and base, and this glitter cardstock for my centers.
3. Cricut Scraper or butter knife. Sounds crazy, but it will make sense soon enough!
4. A pair of scissors.
5. Hot glue and glue gun.
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Your first step is to get your petals, bases and centers set up in design space and cut out. Shown in the image are the dimensions I used for my flowers. I always use the hexagon base to help keep my petals lined up while gluing.
You will need 6 of each size petal per flower. I’ll talk about my 5″ petals, but the same goes for the 4″ ones as well. I like to make mine with three layers of petals, but you can do more or less, as long as there is about an inch difference in the height of each layer of petals.
I started with my six 5″ petals, made six 4″ petals, and then six 3″ petals for each flower. My base for these petals was 1.5″ wide and my centers were 1.75″ wide.
When you have all your petals cut out, stack each size and cut a slit into the the bottom of the petals. The deeper the slit, the flatter the flowers will end up laying when you glue the petals together and to the base of the flower. I cut mine all the way up to about the center of the petals. It doesn’t have to be perfect, some variation in the cuts will make the flowers look a bit more natural.
Your next step is to glue your petal bottoms to give the flowers some dimension. Add a dot of hot glue to one side of the slit you cut. Instead of “folding” the petal so the front sides touch each other, you will “slide” the glued side under the dry side. In other words, the bottom side of one half of the cardstock will be stacked on top of the front side of the other half (the side with the glue on it). The petals themselves should curve as you are gluing them, but how much depends on how long you cut the slit in the center.
There is no wrong way to do this next step, but I find using my cricut scraper makes it easy for me. You want to curl each of your petals to make them look more realistic, and I do this with kind of the same technique as curling ribbon with scissors for gift wrapping and streamers. By pinching the petal between my finger and the sharper edge of the scraper (or butter knife, if that’s what you have on hand) and swiftly pulling it across the edge, it gives the cardstock petal a nice curl.
I curled each side and the top of my pink flowers, and only the sides of the blue ones.
Now it’s time to start gluing the flowers together! Your biggest petals will be the bottom layer of six petals. I use a hexagon base to help me keep my spacing consistent. I find it helps me to put a small dot of hot glue on the back of my petal and place it on the base exactly where I want it, rather than applying the glue to the base and hoping it was in the correct place. I always make sure my petals ends are as close to the “center line” of my hexagon as possible.
Pictured is what the flowers will look like after one (blue) and two (pink) layers of petals have been glued onto the base. I offset my petals so the outer edges are set in between two petals on the previous layer.
Here is roughly what your flower should look like when you are finished gluing the petals on. It definitely still looks unfinished because the inner-workings of them are plainly visible. This is where our glittery flower centers come into play. Just a little dab of hot glue on the flower center, and place it right in the middle of glued up pile of petal ends. The centers are decorative and “busy” enough that they hide any small mistake you may have made with the placement of your petals.
Just another reminder that they don’t need to be perfect! Nature is imperfectly perfect and it’s OKAY if each petal doesn’t look exact or the placement is funky on one, two, or even several petals!
And here they are! Adding those glittery centers to each flower is the perfect touch to really make them look polished! I’ve loved playing with the possibilities in these flowers and can’t wait to see what you are going to do with them!
