Crafting Crepe Paper Flowers: Poppies

1. Step 1: Gather Your Supplies: Hi. Welcome to the skill share class and crafting crepe paper poppies. I'm Heather, the owner and designer behind the online shop. Especially paper. I love all things paper and have been making paper flowers for a number of years, including ones made from crepe paper like the ones we're gonna be doing today. Two card stock flowers from little tiny ones like this daffodil that tops cupcakes. Two large paper flowers that air 24 inches wide to use on walls at events or just to decorate your wall. So I think making paper flowers is really rewarding. And I'm looking forward to sharing that with you. I'll be showing you one method for crafting create paper poppies. They look like this. It has a flat back with the clothes pin on it. So a lot of crepe paper flowers are made on floor wires, which is great when you want to make an arrangement. I think the flat back flowers air actually a little bit easier to make for your first flower, and it also works really well if you're using it in certain situations. For example, if you want to add the clothes pen like in the example we've got today. You can clip it on to things like place cards for a wedding, which is how these ones were used. Or you can set it in a played for a place setting for events or display on a wall. If you want to create a group of thumb, this is a beginner class. You don't need any special skills to create a really lovely in product. I encourage you to share your progress in the class project so that other students concede were true doing and be inspired by your progress. Let's jump into supplies. This list is also in the class Project notes, so don't worry about writing everything down. It's a long list, but if you're crafty type, you probably have many of these items at home. You need good quality crepe paper. I used to waits for this flower, an extra heavy crate and a heavy creep. Crepe paper comes in rolls and you can find it online. I purchased mine from Paper Mart. Their color selection is limited, but they have good prices. The crepe paper you get in the party section at your local store is a lighter weight that isn't suitable for this project. Good quality crepe paper is such a joy to work with. It stretches and flexes, allowing you to form a natural petal shape. Here's a quick snapshot of heavy and extra heavy crate paper, both of which are used in this demonstration. As you can see, extra heavy crepe s significantly more. Stretch for the back of the flower unique card stock, or you can use green crepe paper. You'll also need white craft loose, such as tacky glue. A large would be either cotton ball. What color food coloring, a flat watercolor brush, a paint tray and scissors. A few optional supplies are many close pen text way paper and a sponge. Dabir. The text way paper and sponge Dabir are used if you follow the second method of crafting statements unless you are very patient with hand cutting. The second method requires a craft cutter such as a silhouette or cricket explore. They're serving. Temple is available in the Class Project Section A pdf with the leaf and pedal templates for hand cutting, a de except bile, which could be open and silhouette Studio in SPG file, which could be open and cricket design space, their online design software for cricket explore. At the end of the class, there's a quick tutorial and how to open a D accept file in Silhouette studio and an SPG file in cricket design space that covers it. Let's get started. 2. Step 2: Watercolor Wash: in this step, we're gonna wash. Create paper with watercolor. Adding color is optional, but it does have dimension to the finished piece. You need to pay the but piece and either the French Strip or the statements. Also, if you're creating the centre with a cotton ball, you need to pay an additional long rectangle of the pill yellow and green in the science of two watercolors work well, but food coloring is a great alternative if that's what you have at home for the center. But I use that grain mixed with medium yellow, adding a touch of crimson music, the green of it to make it appear more natural. Losing the paint with a bit of water, using a slightly wet brush washing color from the center to the edge and cover half of the piece. Working quickly turned the paper around and washing either half. The first half is allowed to dry before continuing. It'll be harder to blend the colors together, and you'll have hard edges, which look less natural. You don't want to super watery wash because the goal isn't to some of the paper with color . They aims to wash the top of the creates Reg is this is a dry piece that was painted previously in a darker green. When we stretch it to form the center, it will create a nice variation between the peanut bridges and unpainted valleys of the crepe paper. That's a nice textural dimension. Now we'll repeat the process for the French center. The French Centre is one of two methods will cover for creating the poppy statements. I use the medium yellow ahead of the crimson red and a hint of the green to create the dole yellow. If you want a brighter yellow, be sure to refresh your water and don't incorporate the green. As with the green center. Hate 1/2 of the strip, then quickly turned it around and paint the other half, blending the color to avoid hard edges. The cuts, statement centers, is the second method for creating the flower center. You only need to do the French or the second method, not both. For this approach, the color wash technique is a little different. Since this is a standard lightweight paper, the wash needs to be drier. Use a sponge to pick up just a bit of the wash than dab and rub the color onto the paper. Color each side of the paper with color for interest. Allow bit of variation the color rapacity preach flower. You'll need three layers of statements after these pieces have dried. Will use these to create the center, but in the next video. 3. Step 3: Form the Pod: Once the painted pieces air dry, it's time to make the flower pod. I'll show two methods for making it. One uses a wooden bead. The second uses a cotton ball to craft a form that can replace the beat. For the first method, a small square panic rape to cover one hole in the B, then place the beat in a square crepes so that the covered and points towards that ends of the paper brain. The painted side should be on the outside. Scratch the peace around the bead with less paper on the bottom with the whole wrap around the being until there are at least two layers, then just Tremonti. Extra paper. If there is any, use a bit of weight. Craft glue to secure the edges. Twist the top a bit that's gonna help the beads stay in place and then tuck and fold the bottom paper again. And if you have a toothpick handy, that's Ah, really nice tool. Teoh. Tuck the edges of that paper into the whole of the bead that creates a really nice finished bottom and makes it flatter, which makes it easier to glue into the center of the flower. Make sure you get a nice tight twist on the top and then just trim. This paper is going to form the crown of the pod, so find the center of that paper. You want to use the tip of your finger to then fold it down, so just kind of push it down and find that center and actually untwist it a little bit. Aziz. Well, so I actually liked and twisted enough to show the top of that bead. That's the reason we put this square of painted crepe on top. So just keep forming and stretching kind of twisting until you get it to a point where you like it and then just go around and trim it up. Make sure you have nice even edge is, and usually minds a little bit large to start, and I like to make it a little bit smaller when she finished trimming. That finishes up the pod piece for the first method using the wooden beads, and that's what will place in the center of the flower. The second method uses a cotton ball to create the sinner form for the pod. Place a cotton ball slightly off center on a long rectangle opinion. Creepy. The cotton ball should rest in the unpainted side of the people, then stretch the paper around the cotton much like we did with That wouldn't be when she have a to twist in the middle, just above the car. Then fold on the twist, scrunched that top to turn that into a ball shape. Then just trim off any extra paper on the bottom, not a bit away. Craft glue in between the two sections to help hold those together. Rev a bit of blue on the bottom for extra staying power and scrunch it out again. This forms the ball that we're gonna use in place of the wouldn't be so from here. Use that square pre paper and follow the same steps we just covered before to cover this fall and formed the pod 4. Step 4: Crafting Stamens: next we're going to make this statement. Centers also two methods. The first uses the strip of pale yellow crepe paper that we washed with yellow watercolor. All you need to create these a scissors and the crepe paper. The second method requires more equipment. Took out the stamens I used to silhouette digital cutter. You could also use a cricket craft cutter. I designed the statement specifically for this project, and you can download them from the class files for the French style statements folder Yellow Strip in half twice. Then cut the French and it's nearer strips is you can leaving about 1/4 inch at the bottom , uncut after unfolding, if any strips or water than you like, just cut them again. Gather of the French and cut the ends to form tiny squares. A creepy. We'll use Thies to add to the ends of the stay minto out of it, a texture like pollen. The the remaining French, about an inch long after trimming, were older friends with the unpainted side out, adding white crack blue, every interest, so to keep the world together. Keeping one side unpainted adds a bit of variation and interest to the finished piece. Keep rolling until you reach the end and then, at a bit of craft, flew to finish it off. Then fold the French down until you reached the center, just pulling the strips out kind of folding them where they meet the base. Use close scissor blades to curl the French by pulling the pieces between your thumb and the blake. You sure to hold onto the fringe of the base so that you don't pull off the strips when curling them. If you come off, no worries. The remainder will blend together, and you won't even notice a few missing strips in the Finnish flower dab. Some white crack blew onto the ends of the stamens, then dip them into the tiny creep paper squares, kind of like putting glitter on the ends. And actually, if you want to add a bit of sparkle, litter could also be used here. You can go back and add more glue and dip into the little pieces to you. Just add a bit more and a little bit of layer. When you're done, turn the peace over, then trim the base off so that it's nearly flat on the bottom. Now we'll review the second method. This is the approach I personally prefer. It has a more delicate look and comes together quite a bit faster, but it does require a digital cutter. Such is a silhouette or cricket. To cut the pieces, you can download the files for both silhouette and cricket under the class project, starting with the circular pieces that we painted yellow. Stack and glue three pieces, shifting each piece to distribute the statements evenly. Then use your closest or blades to curl the pieces. Once there, curled bluff and separate the stamens of it. That's it. That's all it takes to curate the statements for the poppy center. Choose whichever method you like best. Once you've made them take a few snapshots of your flower in progress and share them in the class project so the others can see what you're making. 5. Step 5: Crafting Petals: Now we're going to cut and form the crate paper pedals for the poppy. You can download the template from the project files. You'll need to cut five pedals for each flower you're making and use the extra heavy crate paper for this particular piece of the flower. So the first thing to do is just stretch the edges of the pedal, and this is where the extra heavy crate paper really comes into. Play has a lot more stretch. You can get a little bit more of a ruffle out of it. Let's show that again. Superspeed ruffle the edge by stretch in the paper. Next thing you need to dio is blue and crimp the inside edge of the pedal and you wanna overlap and fold where those darts are and you'll just end up with, like, a fan shape. This is pretty messy. You might wanna have a wet paper towel to wipe your fingers on, and once you do one side, you're gonna want to turn over that pedal and add some glue to the back. Look for the creases in the folds that make it a little more stable and easier to work with . Once it's dry. So before the next step, go ahead and set that aside. Let it dry. Really? Well, it'd be a lot easier to work with once it's dry. So once it is, get your dry pedal and start pulling that. Create paper in the center of the pedal. Just stretch it. Be gentle. You don't want to tear it and then fold Increase where those starts are to cover the holes and just continue to play and form the flower. Um, just stretching it. How you think a natural cuddle might look, I'm gonna show that step one more. Time is Well, um, don't want you get boards. I'm gonna put it on Super speedy. Here we go. Now, just repeat that step five times and you have enough to complete the flower 6. Step 6: Shaping the Flower: Now that you have all the pedals down, the next step is shaping the poppy put in those pedals together. So just start with the 1st 1 put a bit of glue on one side at the bottom and maybe a little bit up the edge of the pedal, a swell, and just place that pedal right on the edge. So I've spent off the video because it just the same step all the way around the flower from using five pedals for this one. If you decide to use a lighter weight crepe paper than you may want to use more pedals at the end, that's the trickiest one. You're gonna need to, you know, lay one over top of pedal and then slut it under the last one so that you keep that alternating overlapping peddle structure. When do you finish that? Just take your stamens and drop those in. I like to use a fair amount of glue, but I'm probably a little glue heavy sometimes and then add your center pod that we created . Just give it some time to dry, and then we only showed the French style pedal. But the cut pedal stamens that you see here done the exact same way. Now we just have a few finishing touches left 7. Step 7: Finishing Touches: it's time to put the finishing touches on your flower, so we're gonna add a little leaf background. Thes were designed toe. Have a flat back so that you could use them to display at events. The flat back makes it a little easier. I've actually added a 1.5 inch clothes pin to my version so that I can clip it on to some place cards for a wedding. You can find the PDF template to cut thes leaf patterns by hand, where you can download the files to use a cricket or a silhouette craft cutter if you happen to have one of those at home and there's all found in the class project files. Finally, here's a quick shot of what it looks like if you use the heavy crate paper instead of the extra heavy for the heavy crepe paper, I use six petals instead of five to make sure the flowers nice and full 8. Extra: Tissue Paper Poppies: some in a really quickly show. One other option for creating a poppy. This one uses tissue paper instead of crepe paper, and you'll need a pick or four wire in floral tape. So just, um, whether you use a floor while or a pick, just add some clue to the end and slide that would be that formed the center pod on top, then have a version here of the cuts demons that has a hole in the middle that is on the temple in the project folder. So just curl those statements the same way you did for the crepe paper poppy and then slot it onto the pick. Add a bit of glued to keep everything secure, then cut out six pedals for each flower you're doing. Can, of course, do lots of layers of tissue paper at the time, which makes this pretty quick. And then I had mine on the folds, Any to cut off the fold us well, next you need to scrunch the pedal so you do an accordion fold and keep the grain up and down for the pedal and just, um, he needs a bone folder or rule or anything you have handy. Just put some nice creases and that even just use your finger to put creases in and then twist the end of the pedal. That's what you're gonna attach to the tick. Just pull that out and kind of create that Hettel curl. Then you need to do five more. Here it is sped up. No, you start adding the pedals to the pick, and I'm using some green floral tape here. When you're using that, you want to stretch it a little bit as you wrap it around the pick and stretching. It is what activates the tape. An overlap, a pedal and then wrap mawr with the floral teeth. And then as you wrap around, go ahead and add your next pedal in. We'll tape takes some getting used to. It's pretty sticky stuff, and, um, could be a little hard to work with. It's a little bit finicky, so it does take a little time, so no worries. If you need Teoh, try this a few times before you get it. So keep born in this until you have all six pedals wrapped and then we're at the tape down the pick a little bit or down the floor wire. That's what you're using and just create that nice, smooth taper to the pick, and you can get floral tape in brown and white as well. I've seen, so just flip up the pedals a little bit. In this case, I thought a few of them were a little bit too large. I'm in a term amok with scissors, and that's it. Easy peasy. Just one more way to make a poppy. I hope you've enjoyed this class. Thank you for joining and be sure to post a picture of your project in the class project so your other classmates concede a it and provide some feedback. Thanks so much. 9. How to Upload SVG Files to Cricut Design Space: If you have a cricket Explorer, which is the newer version of that craft cutter, then you can cut out some of the pieces for this project. Teoh upload the file. It's an SPG file. Go to file new and then select upload images, select upload image and then select brow so that you can find the file on your computer. The file name is poppy templates. Underscore cutter dot spg, and you'll see that it shows up in the bottom of that screen after you select save, and you'll note that I've actually upload this file a few times. But select the one that you want to insert so you have that the green check mark and then insert image. They'll come in as a group. I like to right click and select a new group so that I could move those shapes around separately because each shape has a different color. Once you go to cricket go, it's actually gonna lay it out on two different mats. So the green represents green card stock for the leaf back, and then the next. Matt represents the white text color paper for the statements, and you'll need to cut three statements for each flower that you're making, So that's it. Pretty easy. Upload those shapes so you can cut on your cricket crack better. 10. How to Open DXF Files in Silhouette Studio: If you plan to cut the statements with your silhouette digital cutter, you can download the D X F file from the class projects. It's really easy to get it in. You simply open the file in Silhouette studio, and one thing to know there's a couple of things that you'll need to adjust is the sizes don't come in actual size, so you'll need to adjust based on the flower you want to make for the one in the demonstration. The statements, or 1.75 inches wide and the Leave backer is 2.5 inches wide. You need three statements for each power you need to make. The other thing is, sometimes when you import a D accept file into silhouette studio, some corners will be a little bit off. So if you wanna revise those and get those just right, double click on it so that you get the points where you can edit and grab the little endpoints and pull them out to get that cornerback. Since this doesn't have too many quarters, that's not, ah, super slow process. It's not too bad. And here's what you end up with