Crepe Paper Flower Tutorial

Crepe Paper Flowers

Our monthly Artistic Stampers club always ends their business meetings with a Demo.  Tanya Green was on July's demo hostess......and she found this gem.  Crepe paper is abundant in most dollar stores and comes in a wide range of colors.  In the picture above I've chosen these to begin with.

Supplies

Crepe paper

Scissors (I always use Westcott Titanium Bonded Non Stick Scissors)

Aleene's Tacky Glue
Elmer's school glue

Non Stick Crafting Sheet
Kool-Tak: Sparkles/Blue, Sparkles/Silver

Buttons

1" Circle punch

Scrap piece of cardstock

Wire cutter (for cutting shanks off buttons)

Fan fold into 3" sections until you have a total of 10 sheets folded.
You can use 8 sheets but I like a fluffy flower!  Either way, both will look marvelous!

Cut into a m, keeping all papers stacked as shown in picture above.

Puddle the Elmer's glue on a paper plate. With crepe paper petals lightly pinched together, roll the tip of the petal into the glue.  A LITTLE goes a long way, lightly roll the petal top edge on the glue's surface.
Do not DUNK!

With your glitter poured into a small container, coat the glue with glitter.

Set aside to dry. Repeat with remaining petals.

Here I have all my petals drying on my non stick craft sheet.

DRIED and ready for the real fun to begin!
Here I've cut my 1" circles and I'm ready to roll!

With the TACKY glue, lightly tip the straight edge (end NOT glittered) into the glue.

Notice my 1" round piece of card stock in the background?  This is the base the flower will be built on.

Wha LA, first petal done!

Second petal done.

All 5 petals in place.
Now repeat with a second layer, alternating your petals over the lower petals.

Here's a white flower with lavender glitter.

The center of the flower has a dab of tacky glue in it and topped off with a pretty button.
I have THOUSANDS of buttons as I'm sure most of you do too......
so get to choosing the perfect flower center!

A purple button for the center of my white flower.

My favorite color is TEAL.......so you know I had to make one using my favorite color!

Another shot of the flowers set a side to let the centers dry.

I love the way these turned out......each flower has it's own personality! 

Now, should you decide to create your own crepe paper flowers, I'd LOVE to see them!!

Diaper Wreath for Baby Grace

My daughter, Jamie Cantrell, and the other Cantrell wives, Amy & Cindy threw a wonderful baby shower for Carmen & Mike Corder last weekend. Here's the expecting couple!

Carmen & Michael Corder

Jamie was made a diaper tiered cake and had lots of diapers left over so to put the remaining diapers to good use I created a Diaper Wreath.  Thus the following adventure began.  Mind you, I've never created anything with diapers before (other than the artful wrapping of a baby's tush)....so bear with me.  I did get the inspiration from Pinterest but added my own little twist.

Supplies:

Diapers
Beacon Adhesives Quick Grip
Beacon Fabric-Tac
Scrap cardboard for wreath base
Westcott Craft Hobby knife
Pencil
Westcott Titanium Bonded Scissors
2" wide ribbon in nursery color
1/4" ribbon in contrasting nursery color
2 1/2" ribbon for bow
Wood letter in a size to fit center
Nursery colors to paint wood letter


Directions:

With a scrap piece of cardboard:
          cut a 24 inch circle with the Westcott Craft Hobby Knife
          measure 4" in from outer circle
You will now have a donut looking piece
Along the back of the cardboard circle, use popsicle sticks to reinforce the structure.
Spray with white spray paint, covering edges & popsicle sticks.

Cut 2" ribbon into 8 inch lengths. Depending on your wreath, you will cut ribbon as you go along.

 

Roll diapers (these are number threes) tightly as shown above.

 

Wrap diaper with ribbon and apply Beacon Fabric adhesive, close ribbon over adhesive, hold for a few seconds, repeat until you have enough rolled diapers to cover the cardboard wreath.

Keep going......make sure both ends of the diapers are tucked neatly. You can see I haven't tucked the green above in yet.

Here you can see the cardboard wreath with all the little rolled up diapers.

Ok, so the directions I read said to cut the wreath 13 1/2" but I strayed thinking it was too small & made it 24 inches.......this makes for a LARGE wreath!  So if you don't need a huge one.......stick with a smaller diameter.  Here these rolled up diapers are lining up well.  Line up the diapers on the wreath and adhere with Beacon's Quick Grip one at a time creating a tight fit.

With the dark pink 1/4" ribbon, adhere end to the back and wrap one way in a diagonal all the away around the wreath from the outside diameter, coming up from the center hole.  When you get to the end, begin wrapping the opposite direction as shown below.

Now the wreath is literally beginning to POP with the contrasting color in place.

Here is the wreath with all the diapers attached, ribbons wrapped and ends tucked in neatly.  I love personalizing just about everything I make, this was no different.  Carmen & Mike have chosen the name "Grace" for their baby, so out to Hobby Lobby I go to get a letter G.  Little did I know that names beginning with a G was in so high a demand!  I found this frilly G hanging on the E peg.......so it went into my buggy in a flash & eyed everyone who got close in case they even thought of taking that G out of my buggy! :-) 

I painted the G with a light pink then using a hot pink to set the edges off and to add further contrast.

I created a bow using 2 1/2 inch sparkly hot pink wired ribbon.  In order to hang the G, Van thought of gluing the ribbon horizontally.  Vertically would have caused a dilemma when hanging......so horizontal it was. I adhered the G on with Quick Grip.  When dried, I carefully cut the ribbon out from the inside area as not to interfere with the beautiful lines of the G.

Here the diaper wreath is completed & hanging on the door at the baby shower. 

The new momma sent me this picture Saturday as it's the first wall decoration in baby Grace's room!

I must say it looks pretty on the wall in the nursery!  I believe the only thing I'd do different next time is to made the wreath smaller.  24 inches was a tad too large......

Of course I had to design a baby card to fit the occasion.....so here's a cute diaper card I found on the internet.  I couldn't resist!

I hope you enjoyed this post.......leave a comment!  I'd love to hear from you!