DIY: giant paper flowers

 

You may remember the wedding of our lovely D*S contributor Brittany Watson Jepsen. Her huge paper blooms made such a splash that she started selling them in her shop, and just recently Brittany wrote a great article for Brooklyn Bride about the paper flower trend. I’m thrilled that this is a growing phenomenon; I adore anything made in exaggerated scale, so I feel that the more giant flowers and plants there are in the world, the better.

This particular giant-flower DIY project comes from the creative team at Ruche. They decided to make these giant fantasy flowers for their spring lookbook, which is aptly titled “Enchantment.” Read below for the story of how this project came to be, and find the full tutorial after the jump. Thanks for sharing this awesome DIY, Ruche team, and thank you, Brittany, for being on the forefront of such a cool trend :) Enjoy! — Kate

Our creative team brainstormed ways to turn our spring lookbook, Enchantment, into a daydream. When the idea of oversized flowers came about, we couldn’t wait to make them a reality! Josh, the CFO of Ruche, used his engineering background to design the stems, and with the help of additional Ruche team members, they created them by hand at our warehouse. Surrounded by tissue paper and scissors, our talented set-design interns designed and created the rest of the flower pieces at our warehouse. Once they were finished, the whimsical daydream came to life. — The Ruche Team

Materials

• plastic cups
• cement
• approx. 5” wide stucco corner
• approx. 20-gauge tie wire
• gloves and wire cutters
• tape, glue, and scissors
• tissue paper
• dried moss
• zip ties

Instructions
Making the stem:
1. Determine how many flowers you’re going to make and pour cement into the corresponding number of plastic cups. Let harden.

2. Purchase stucco corner (sturdy wire) from your local hardware store. The pieces we used were 5” in width.
3. Cut the wire into desired stem lengths. We varied each stem from 3 to 8 feet high. Remember to protect your hands with gloves!

4. Use the cement cups as a base and mold the wire into stems.


5. Cover the wire stems with tape for a smooth surface.

6. Glue layers of tissue paper onto the surface until the entire stem is covered.

Making the leaves:
1. Purchase approximately 20-gauge tie wire from your local hardware store and cut into desired lengths. Remember to leave extra length at the end (to attach to the stem later).
2. Twist pieces of wire together to form the leaf base.

3. Cut layers of tissue paper into leaf shapes.
4. Glue the layers together around the wire base.

5. Poke the leaves into the stems.

Making the flowers:
1. Cut layers of tissue paper into petals of various sizes.

2. Form the smallest petals into a bouquet. Tape the bouquet’s stem to keep the layers together.

3. Add the next layer of petals and tape and repeat until you have reached the desired size.

4. For the flower centers, cut circles out of tissue paper, scrunch the edges, and glue two layers together.

5. Glue moss into the center of the circles.

6. Attach the center to the petals, and the flower is complete.

7. Use zip ties to attach the flower to the stem.

You’re done!