Create Paper Flower Boards for Home Decoration, Gifts or Special Events

1. Introduction - Create Paper Flower Boards: Hi everyone. My name is Stella Anderle. I'm an artist, designer, illustrator and art teachers settled in Ontario, Canada. In this class I want to teach you how to create beautiful paper flower boards for home decoration, gifts or special events. I will use for this class a real professional project on which I have worked in 2019 for the brand of miss France 2009, "Mademoiselle Provence" Through this example and through this class, you will learn how to find inspiration for creating paper flowers. How to sketch and design your ideas. How to craft your designed models, making out of them three-dimensional paper flowers. And how to organize them on your boards in appealing and efficient compositions. I will also teach you how to bring more variety in your work and make it more personal. This class is accessible from beginner's level. It is for anyone who wants to discover paper craft design and experiment with it through creating a paper flower board. You can take it as a game, an experiment. You can take it as the opportunity for creating a beautiful new home decoration, crafting a gift for a friend. Or why not, elaborating a fresh and elegant decoration for some special event, such as a marriage, a birthday party, or a reception. By the end of this class, you will be able to create your own paper flower boards and decorations. I hope you will enjoy it. 2. Materials : What materials do you need to get started for making the paper flowers? First of all, you need several sheets of smooth card stock paper in the color of your choice. You can also mix several colors. I recommend you paper which is between 60 and 80 pounds or about 200 grams. I think ten sheets will be enough for this project, but it totally depends how many flowers you want to make, how big you want them to be, and how much you want to experiment with the process. You need also Paper Glue or multi-purpose glue. All the project can be completed with paper or multi-purpose glue. But if you want to use hot glue, it is perfectly OK. I also recommend hot glue, especially for one of the models that I will show you, the model of the rows because it is more practical and time-saving, but it remains optional. I don't recommend using superglue for safety reasons. Scissors, in addition to your favorite craft scissors, I recommend you having small nail scissors, which are very precise thanks to their curved tip. You will need also a pencil and sketching paper. Once your flowers are made, you will need a foam boards in the size of your choice according to how big you want your final creation to be. You can find foam boards sold separately or in a package of several pieces. If you want to create a bigger quantity of paper flowers in a limited time, a cutting machine can be very helpful and time-saving, but you don't need it to complete this project. That is all. If you have the essential materials, you are ready to start. Let's dive into the class project. 3. Class Project: Your project for this class, will be to create your paper flowers and your own paper flower board. It can be similar to mine or very different, very personal. Don't hesitate to experiment with the tips given in the class and express your own style. Here are the steps to the final project. First, I will show you how to find inspiration and sketch your ideas. Then we will play with crafting and bringing to life your paper flowers. Next, you will display your paper flowers in a variety of compositions, and take photos of your ideas. After that, you will have to make choices and compose your paper flower board. Finally, share, Take a picture of your finished project and post it in the project gallery. You can take a picture of any step of your process and post it for feedback, encouragement, or specific advice. See you in the next lesson where I will give you my tips how to find inspiration and sketch your ideas. 4. Inspiration and Sketches: Inspiration is something I like to cultivate in my daily life. Inspiration is everywhere, outside and inside of us. Let's speak first about outside sources of inspiration. The first one for me is real life. Go in nature. Take a walk in a park or just visit the nearest flower store in your neighborhood and take the time to observe the flowers, their petals, their stems and their leaves. All the variety of shapes, colors, and textures that they offer. The second source of inspiration is taking photos. Take photos and build your own flower library. It doesn't have to be scientifically perfect, but it has to serve your artistic purpose. Bring you inspiration, better understanding, and lots of ideas about botanical shapes, colors, and textures. Another source of outside inspiration is other artists' work. How other people tend to see and to represent flowers in a variety of artistic fields. Visit a museum, go to exhibitions and make regular researches on internet, for example, on Pinterest or any other social media that you like. And find how other artists, photographers, sculptures, illustrators, designers, painters, or even architects or writers, are inspired by Flowers and botanical life in general. Then, write a few words about what attracts you in their artwork. What is touching you ? Is it the looseness of their style? Is it their color palette ? Is it the variety of details, shapes, and textures that they use? Let's speak now about the inner sources of inspiration. The inner sources of inspiration are also extremely valuable for me because they are in connection with our own personal style and with our own life. The first one is our imagination. Drawing flowers every day out of our imagination helps us to build our personal, unique imaginary library and brings us a flow of daily ideas coming from inside of us. Another source of inner inspiration are our dreams. When you have a dream of special flowers and forms, even if they are abstract, don't hesitate to sketch them quickly or to describe them. Even in the middle of the night, as dreams are quickly forgotten, then go back later in the day to refine your night sketches. And the last but not least source of inspiration which will bring you interesting and abundant ideas, is meditation. Don't hesitate to take the time and go every day for a few minutes in the silence. Sometimes you will go out of this exercise without any conscious visual idea. But don't be upset. Just grab your pen or a pencil and sketch. what comes to your mind. You will be surprised. Suddenly unexpected ideas will come. At this step of the process when you are cultivating your inspiration, allow yourself to be completely free. Never set yourself. Restrictions or boundaries such as, Oh, this flower model is too complicated. I will never know how to turn it into a 3D paper flour or something like, oh no, this flower is too unrealistic. Or I love this flower, but it doesn't fit my style. It doesn't enter into the box that I have set as being my style. Well, at this stage, don't judge your art. Just allow yourself to explore, to be messy, and to sketch all that comes to your mind from the inner. I would like to give you also a little tip in order to stay organized and to make blossom your inspirational process. Create a folder for your outside inspiration. And another folder or a journal, or a sketch book for your inner inspiration. For your inspiration, You can collect your daily life sketches from observation. You can also collect in this folder your photos or even scanned botanical materials. You can also take note of other artists' work, which is from exhibitions, museums, visits, or internet researches. The purpose is not to copy the other artists work, but to get inspired and to nurture your artistic culture and creativity. In the folder for your inner inspiration. Collect your sketches or paintings out of your imagination and exploration process. You can also collect your dream sketches, or you can use it as a meditational journal. Now, take the time and start sketching some of your ideas from your favorite sources of inspiration. See you in the next lesson where we will select one of our sketched ideas. We will turn it into a more refined sketch then try it out as a three-dimensional paper flower. 5. Bonus: Sketching Demonstration : Before diving into paper crafting, I decided to include a bonus video of my flower sketching demonstration from life and from imagination. First with pencil, then with black ink. If you want to improve and to experiment more with flour sketching. I am already preparing a new class about how to build your personnel imaginary flower library. Drawing flowers is an important skill for illustrators, designers, from logo designers to surface pattern designers, for floral crafting, but also for well-being and developing our imagination and creativity. And who knows, maybe through building your imaginary flower library, you will discover your personal style. Just click on the Follow button if you wish to be informed when this class will be released. 6. From Sketch to Paper Flower - First Steps: Once I have my sketches, I choose which one of them I want to turn into a 3D paper flower. If it is some model I have never done before. I take the time to experiment with different techniques till I find the one that I'm happy with the result as well as with the technical process. In this course, I will show you one of my favorite techniques with which you can build a variety of successful three-dimensional flowers. Of course, there are many other techniques, but I have chosen this one because it guarantees you quick, efficient, beautiful results and allows you to express easily your creativity in bringing lots of variations. I call this technique the technique of the "petal layers". It consists to overlay several layers of petals and shape each layer, giving the petals the form of your choice. The layers can be of the same size or of different sizes. In order to apply this specific technique, I will choose the sketches that would fit for it. It will be any sketch that I can sum up or represent the general form of the flower in several layers of petals. The petals of each layer have to hold in one flat block. Here are some examples. 7. Prepare Your Cutting Patterns: Once you have chosen the general form of the flower you wish to make, Let's sketch again properly the different layers of petals on a card stock sheet of paper. You can try to make the petals even or bring some variations. This will be our cutting pattern. We will not use those cutouts directly for the final flowers. But I highly recommend you to keep them in a folder, Keep a set of cutting patterns for each flower model you design. It will help you to find them easily whenever you wish to make again, a specific flower. At this stage, when you're designing, and setting the form of the cutting pattern, you can allow yourself to draw loosely, to erase, to make corrections. In the next video, you will learn how to use the cutting patterns in order to make the petal layers that we will put together to create the final product, the 3D paper flowers. 8. Make the Petal Layers: Here we have our cutting patterns. As you can see, they can have some pencil marks or some traces from the eraser. That's perfectly okay as they will not be used in the final composition. Now, place the cutting patterns on a new card stuck sheet of paper and trace properly and lightly the contour line of each petal. Take the time to do this step accurately in a way that you don't have to use an eraser in order to keep the petal layers clean of any marks or undesirable spots. Once you are done, remove the patterns and cut every layer. I wish to give you some tips for cutting paper nicely with scissors. Cut down the sheet in separate smaller blocks corresponding to each element. Use the straight scissors for this straight lines. Don't pull on the little pieces of paper that are not detached completely. But use the scissors to cut out further and do it properly. Use the little curved tip scissors for the curved forms. When you have to change the cutting direction and to make a strong curve. Instead of turning the scissors, I suggest you to turn the paper element and adjust it to the new direction in which this scissors should cut. Now, we have our flower petals. But I will finish this model later in the section about bringing variations. I will take as an example for my further demonstrations two models of flowers that I have created for the brand Mademoiselle Provence, I have chosen those models because they would allow you to apply and to understand the technique of the petal layers in a very efficient way. And also because this design of flowers, has a very clean and elegant look and you will be easily successful. Let's start with the first model, which I have designed out of my imagination. I called this flower. "Fleur de Province" in relationship with my work for the brand Mademoiselle Provence. You can find the worksheet of the model for this flower in the resource documents section of the course. You can download it, print it, and follow this exact process with me, or experiment with your own model out of your imagination. Let's dive in. 9. « Fleur de Provence »: In this lesson, I will show you how to craft the model of "fleur de Provence". You have already the pattern document in the resource section of the course. The sheet number one is sufficient if you wish to create the standard size for this flower, which is about four inches or ten centimetres of diameter. If you want to go for a bigger size, about 5.5 inches or 14 centimetres of diameter. Download in addition, the second sheet I have provided and add the bigger petals below the smaller ones. As you see, with this technique, you will need at least five layers of petals, two layers of the biggest size, and one layer of each of the other sizes according to the size of the flower that you wish to make. You can add extra layers. After we have cut all the layers, we will shape them. For this model, pinch every petal in order to give all of them a slightly folded natural appearance. Then take one of the layers of the biggest size, put a drop of paper glue in the middle and stick on the top of it the second biggest layer. Slightly rotate the second layer in order to have a balanced, harmonious distribution of the petals in a staggered arrangement. Press slightly to ensure these two layers stick well together. Then move forwards and glue the other layers at the top of each other, repeating the same process. And remember, keep always a staggered arrangement between the layers. With a paper or multi-purpose glue, we often have enough time to rearrange or reposition the layers in a way that you like it, that you like the distribution of the petals. So don't hesitate to rotate slightly the layers till you are happy with their arrangement. And here we are. Congratulations, you have succeeded. Your French flower, "fleur de Provence" is ready. In the next lesson, you will discover how to make the model of the rose. 10. Paper Rose: In this lesson, I will show you how to create beautiful paper roses. Before diving into crafting, check the resource section of the course, then download and print the sheet with cutting pattern of the rose, which I have provided. As you can see, in order to make this rose, the layers have to be at the same size. You will need five or six petal layers to complete the flower. For this model, I like to use hot glue because I have found that it is very much time-saving. Of course, you can perfectly complete the project with paper glue or multi-purpose glue. But you have to be patient and take your time to maintain the petals in the shape you wish to give them. Usually, at least for one or two minutes. It depends how quickly your glue dries. But using paper glue is absolutely possible. This is an example of rose I have made using paper glue. There is no difference in the result, but you have to be patient and for sure, there is a difference in the time you will need for crafting it. The big advantage of hot glue is that the petals will stick immediately together and in the shape you will give them. But at the same time, the disadvantage will be that hot glue doesn't allow you to have a lot of time to reposition the petals or your layers. Once you know this, let's start crafting. This time. The first petal layer will be in the heart of the flower, and we will add the additional layers outside of the first layer. We will give this first layer a bud shape. In order to make the bud shape pinch firmly two opposite petals and bring them together in the center of the flower. Then fix them with a drop of glue applied only on one side of the petals. The other side remains free. If you work with Paper Glue, hold the petals together for one or two minutes before proceeding with shaping another petal. If your work with hot glue, hold the petals together for a few seconds, and just be confident in your gestures because you couldn't go back and reposition the petals easily, the hot glue will fix them very quickly. When the first two petals, well together, apply a drop of glue on one side of a new petal and fix it to the petals in the middle. For this first layer of petals, you apply a drop of glue only on one side of each petal and leave the other side Glue free. If you want to apply glue to both sides of the layers, the center of the rose will be more closed. You can fold and shape each petal and think about what position you would like to give it before applying the glue. There is no rule about this. Just follow your artistic feeling and allow your roses to be slightly different from each other. Once you have given a bud shape to the first petal layer, glue it in the middle of a new one. Then start shaping the petals. Pinch the petals of the second layer slightly but not completely. Put a drop of glue, at the base and at the sides of each petal. leaving the upper part of the petals glue free, and slightly opened. Take your time, shape and glue the petals one by one in order to obtain a slightly open bud. Then add the third layer in a staggered arrangement. As we did for the previous layers, shape the petals by pinching them with two fingers before gluing them. As we wish that every additional layer is more and more open than the previous ones. This time, we should apply the glue only at the base of the petals. When you add the fourth layer, don't forget to keep a staggered arrangement of the petals. As for the layer number three, you should apply the glue only at the base of the petals and shape them in a way that they are a little bit more open than the layer before. Always give the right shape to the petals, with your fingers, before you glue them. Maintain the petals in their final position for a few seconds after gluing them in order to be sure that they are correctly fixed and would not lose their shape and move when you would like to go further. With paper glue, you should maintain the petals more than a few seconds, rather for one or two minutes, according to how fast your glue dries. Once you have finished with the fourth layer, fix the fifth one. This time, you will no more need to glue the petals. Just give them slightly folded appearance with your fingers. Then finish with gluing the sixth layer. always in a staggered arrangement, but leaving the petals completely open. And here we are. We have our paper rose done. Congratulations. 11. How to Craft Leaves: You would probably like to cheer up your flower compositions with some leaves. That's why I decided to include another bonus video showing you how to make leaves if you want to include them in your final composition, followed exactly the same process for the flowers. First, sketch your ideas and transfer them properly on a card stock sheet of paper. Right? This leaf is a little different from the others. It is not made out of card stock paper, but out of basic copy paper in green color, which is much thinner, about 20 pounds or 1890 grams. In order to make this leaf, I prepared squares of four by four inches or ten by ten centimeters. And they used an origami technique, which I will demonstrate for you through this video. Just follow carefully and put the video on pause if you need it. Okay. Okay. 12. Bring Variations: As you understand and master the technique of the petal layers, you would probably like to bring variations to your artwork and create your personal flowers. The key for this is explore and experiment with colors, shapes, and textures. Let's first experiment with colors. You get decided to create a monochromatic composition. I say dated for my flow abort foreman was L province. In this case, it was the choice of my clients in order to respect the style and the feel of the prompt. But you can also choose to experiment with limited color palettes and several colors. Think about the color palette in which you wish to create a bright colorful popping up pallet, or a soft pastel palette. Finally, you can combine several colors in one flower, choosing to incorporate better layers of different colors. Let's now experiment with shapes. You can vary the number of petals in each layer. Tried to make flour sweet three or four or more than five petals per layer. You can also give your petals at different general shape, more elongate, more round, closed, or opened. You can also bring variations at the edge of the petals. This will give a completely different look of your flowers. You remember the flower we have sketched and greeted the cutting patterns before I show you how to make the rows and my imaginary French flower Florida poems. In this case, we have four petals instead of five. And the shape that is a very open adn, almost like a cup, then the edges are not smooth. Letting us see exact line. Let's put now all of those petals together and see the result. Validity are satisfied or not with the result. Really worthwhile to experiment all your ideas and keep your favorite ones. This way, you will become more and more conscious about what you can expect when you play with different shapes of battle layers. Another way to bring variations to your paper flowers is to play with texture. During this class, I recommended you to work with smooth card stock paper, but now you can choose to experiment with Dick shirt card stock paper. The result will be also very different. You can also experiment with texturing the paper by yourself. For example, by applying on it acrylic paint and rink aid using some household items such as a com, a needle, a fork, or even your fingerprints, or glue textured material over your flower petals, such as an aluminum foil or plastic wrap, or whatever materials you would like to experiment with. Well, I think it would be a great topic for another class. When your flowers are finished, you can even give them a final touch. If you wish. You can put a pearl or a little crafted tool in the middle of your flowers or make them as fancy and as imaginary you want them to be. Finally, you combine all those ideas for variations. Now, I'm so much looking forward, seeing all your wonderful experiments and ideas. Please take a picture and download your flower inventions. Or you work in progress in the project gallery and flourished the space week, you're happy artwork. 13. Play with Composition: At this step, you have probably already created a variety of flowers. You can use all the flowers separately or in a group as the decoration on a shelf or cheering Gup, a guest table. For the moment, just play around with them and take pictures of your decoration ideas. Don't forget to share some of your photos. I will be very happy to see them. For me, this is the most enjoyable parts of the process. Now, let's go forward and see how can we combine several flowers together in a composition for a flow abort? And choose which flowers you would like to use for your board, which colors and shapes you would like to include. If you have choosing the size of your board, just keep it in mind. Or even better, take your phone boards near you and place upon it in a random position, the flowers of your choice. Before starting to arrange them. Let's have a look at some basic composition rules. You already heard about the rule of thirds. It consists in dividing our visual composition into nine equal sections by two vertical and horizontal lines. This is a kind of imaginary frame which allows you to put the most important elements of your composition on one of the lines or at the points where the lines meet. If you want to incorporate a variety of flowers on your board, think about the flower you wish to be. The primary point of focus. And try to place it on one of those strong points or guidelines. Well, this is one possibility. But maybe you would like to go for a symmetrical composition. Symmetry can be easily used to guide the eye to a single point. Conscious of which Flower you would like to put on your focus point. If you want to play with a repeating pattern composition, especially if you have created a lot of similar flowers. This also can be a very interesting choice. Feeling your board with a pattern that repeats gives also a great visual impact. But you can also decide to break the repetitive pattern with a flower, which shape and color stand out from the rest? Well, once you know those basic rules, you can follow them or break them. The most important is to play around with your flowers, to experiment with compositions. Here, have fun and take photos of all your favorite ideas. Don't forget to put them into the project gallery. Then take a break and go back to your photos after an hour or a day and decide reached composition you prefer for your final flower board. See you in the next lesson where I will show you how to fix the flowers on your phone board. 14. Final Steps: Once you have chosen your final composition, it is time to fix the flowers on the phone board. For this purpose, I will use permanent mounting tape, cut small pieces of tape and fix them at the bottom of each flower. Usually, I don't remove immediately the BEC strip of tape. I don't fix it immediately in case they want to reposition again slightly my elements. I just prepare every element the same way. First the flowers, then the leaves, looking to keep all of them in the arrangement I won't. For the leaves are usually put two or three narrow bands of tape underneath the stems and keep the main part of the leafs free to be shaped slightly over the board. And this avoids to have completely flat elements in the composition and gives it more depth, natural lose appearance and visual interest. So every element on the board is equipped to weigh the band of mounting tape, take them one by one, remove the bags, trip of the tape, and fix them at the same position. Just be careful not to stick the neighbor elements to each other. We wanted that they overlap, but we need to keep them separate for more control when we fix them. Press firmly, but still carefully. And your flowers and leaves will be definitely fixed. If you wish to reposition them slightly, don't press until we are sure of their final position. Take your time and fix them one by one in a way that you like. The permanent mounting tape is perfect for fixing lightweight items, such as our flowers on a clean try and smooth surface. If you have chosen to make your flowers out of textured card stock paper, this tape could not fit for fixing them and not be efficient enough. And I would recommend you to glue them. For this final step. Just take your time for arranging everything as you like it. Maybe you would need to shape some leaves a little more to make them come back or forward certain petals. And maybe even you would need to add an extra leave as they did because there was the blank space striking my, I can really congratulate yourself, your flow. A board is ready to cheer up your home, take a photo and share it in the project gallery. I'm looking forward to seeing your amazing flower boards, but also to answer your questions and give you a feed back. I hope you enjoyed this class at least as much as I enjoyed making it and sharing it with you. And hopefully see you in one of my upcoming classes.