Weddingbee Blog

I’ve mentioned the paper flowers we’re folding once before, as well as hinted at the flowers that will be popping up elsewhere (I refuse to call it a theme). So that means that in addition to the bouquets, boutonnieres, and centerpieces of real flowers, we’re also folding lots of paper flowers! And when I say we are folding, I mean me, my mom and friends. This is definitely not up Mr. Guinea Pig’s alley.

I was inspired when I saw these two posts (in the first link, scroll down to the cherry blossom flowers) by Miss Poodle! I love cherry blossoms, so I knew immediately that I wanted to supplement our natural flowers with some of these paper ones. I set out to find some nifty paper and started folding a few to see how I liked them.

(two different types of paper)

Yup, I love them! These aren’t completely finished because in the end they will have yellow centers, as you’ll see a little further down. I bought one package of paper with several different shades of blue, as well as one giant piece of Lokta paper from Paper Source (only $2.50, and I’ll make over 100 flowers from it!). After making quite a few in 3 inch squares, I started to vary the square size in order to get a bunch of different flower sizes.

(you can see the three different shades of blue (with some white ones thrown in!), and various sizes)

I won’t go into a tutorial as several have already been written. The original is here, and a great updated one with a lot more detail done by Miss Poodle can be found here. After making this batch, I took a trip home to my parents’ house and showed my mom how to make them. We bought more (different) paper, and added in the yellow centers for a sneak peek at some of the finished product!

(New paper, with yellow centers!)

After I add the yellow crepe paper centers to all these, we’re going to glue them on branches and arrange them in vases (or maybe pails?) and put them in areas that need some decoration/sprucing up but definitely don’t need high cost real flowers - I’m thinking the bar area, the buffet table, the DJ’s table…

I originally thought I would glue these flowers onto curly willow branches like these:

(from save-on-crafts)

However I would need quite a few of these branches and that could start to get pretty expensive, so I kept looking for other options. Then I found birch branches!

(also from save-on-crafts)

These branches seem like a better option because each piece has multiple branch off points, which will give a fuller effect, and I’ll need fewer branches per arrangement. They’re not as ’clean’ looking as the curly willow branches, but I think I can make it work.

In addition to the cherry blossom flowers, I also made a few test runs of the second paper flower inspiration I noted above.

(this paper is blue on one side white on the other, which is why the middle part is white)

I love these flowers, and after showing the two different flowers to friends, these ones clearly got a stronger response. People loved them! They’re much bigger than the cherry blossom flowers and require more paper, but I definitely like them enough to make a batch of these as well. I don’t really want to put them in a ball like this:

(from here)

So now I’m left with a dilemma - how do I use these awesome flowers? I’ve thought about just setting them out to be on display on a table, or the mantle in the ballroom. Or maybe using them somehow in conjunction with the escort cards? They’re too big to also glue to the branches, so I can’t make arrangements with them like that. What are your suggestions?

Where else would you put paper flower arrangements? Are you folding flowers for your wedding? What is your favorite type of paper flower? I’d love to see some more types!