Weddingbee Blog

Here is the original tutorial that I have used to make my flowers, so if you want to make similar flowers, give that one a read first! I’ve talked a bit about my flowers before, but this is how I’ve adapted the tutorial to make mine.

Because I’m making so many of these, I am very happy for my Silhouette SD machine.

This allows me to cut out many flowers at once, and I can easily re-size the cut file so I can get multiple sizes. The other shortcut that I took was to have the machine cut everything out exactly as I need it. The original tutorial uses a paper punch, then has you cut out single and double petal pieces to make the 5 different bits you need to make each flower. I had the Silhouette do this all for me, by creating a cut file that looks like this:

It cuts the whole flower with the slit, the one with one petal separate, and the one with two petals separate. Easy-peasy! When it comes out of the machine, pull all the bits apart (some stick to the waste paper, some stick to the cutting mat) and sort them into piles of the same thing.

When you realise exactly how many of these you’re making, find an appropriate container, rather than little piles on the desk:

Next pick a size and find your glue:

Then glue them all into their cone shapes.

When you’re done with one size, move on to another. I really prefer doing crafts this way—finishing all of one task, then moving on. I feel like it moves faster that way. All the cutting, all the gluing, all the trimming…it’s a good, old-fashioned production line! Once I had all the little petal cones glued, I trimmed the pointy ends off them all except the largest one. You can see the holes at the bottom of the cones in this photo:

Then I cut all my wire—I’m using 18 gauge covered, because it seems the most like real stems, and I cut everything to about 9″ long. Then I put a little bend at the top of each one, about a quarter of an inch in:

Thread the biggest flower (it should be a 5-petalled cone) on to the wire. I found it helped to make the hole in the flower with a toothpick first, then stick the bottom of the wire through and slide the flower all the way up to the bend.

I found the best position to hold these in was as pictured above: My index finger is pressing the paper flush against the bent bit of the wire. Now you squeeze a big glob of glue into the flower:

Once this dries that wire will be stuck for good! But before it dries, plop in the 4-petal cone:

Sometimes I’d just stick this one in on top of the wire, sometimes I threaded the bent of the wire through the hole. That really just depended on how I was feeling, how big the hole was, and how long the bent piece of wire was. Glob more glue in, and put in the 3-petal cone:

You guessed it, glob more glue in and put in the last couple pieces (2 petal-cone, and the single petal). I found it helped to put the two centre pieces together first, as the very centre one is fiddly to put in with one hand. You don’t need to glue these when you’re prepping them, they’ll just stay because of friction.

Stick your finished flower in a jar and let it dry! Using that much glue makes them very sturdy when dry (Glossy Accents is one of my favourites, it dries nice and hard and super-sturdy), but it does make them feel a little waterlogged when you’re working although it doesn’t give the rippled effect to paper that regular Elmer’s does. Nothing burst or ripped on me while I was working, and the wire was thick enough that no glue ever dripped out the hole and down the stem either.

Making these wasn’t terribly hard, especially with the Silhouette doing all the cutting work. We’ll see if arranging is as easy (I’m thinking not).