Fresh cut flowers are beautiful, aren't they? It's just that most of us don't have them available all the time. But then, artificial flowers can be decorative as well and charming in their very own way. So, why not?
These carnations are wrapped from crepe paper. Well, in strict botanic terms they may not be carnations ... call them fantasy carnations instead?
For each flower you will need:
- 3 strips of red crepe paper, 30 cm by 6,5 cm,
- 2 strips of green crepe paper, 38 cm by 2,5 cm, plus 7 cm by 3 cm,
- 1 piece of paper wrapped wire per flower,
- a glue stick,
- some thin flower wire,
- some copy paper.
This is how they are done:
Cut 3 strips of red crepe paper. One will create the inner, the others the outer petals.
The paper strips need some preparation. Fold one of them twice, then cut through all layers repeatedly in a 1 cm distance leaving a 1cm border intact. Unfold, the strip will come out as fringes. Take the other two strips and pre-ruffle one border of each: just gather the paper and crimp. This will ease the wrapping later on.
Now start assembling the flower. A paper wrapped wire will serve as stem. Paste one end with glue and place it on the fringed strip.
Wrap the strip loosely around the wire and glue it on.
Add the other strips ruffling the pre-crimped border as you wrap. Tuck in both ends loosely.
Fixating the flower proves a little bit tricky. You need to hold what has been wrapped so far with one hand and wind a piece of flower wire tightly around it with the other. Make sure to pull the wire really, really tight, otherwise the inner layers will come sliding out! At last twist together the wire ends and clip them generously.
It's time to wrap the stem. This will be done with the long strip of green crepe. But first cut a zig zag into one border of the short strip, a bit like a paper crown.
Paste the zig-zagged strip with glue and wrap it around the flower bottom high enough to just cover the wire.
Round off one end of the long paper strip, attach it at an angle ...
...and wrap, wrap, wrap ... attach the tail and ... you are done!
For a nice bouquet you may well need 7 or 8 flowers.
To complete the picture we will add a bunch of decorative leaves. Simply cut out rounded shapes from a sheet of paper, free hand will do. One leaf will be 30 cm long and about 3 cm at the widest bulge. Paste it onto green crepe paper, cut it out adding a few mm "seam allowance", turn it , paste it onto another piece of crepe paper and cut it out again plainly. The paper batting will provide the necessary stability in the vase.
That's it!
Have fun decorating!
