How to Make Paper Flowers

To make flat flowers, you will need:

• A heart punch – use several different sizes of heart punchess if you want to make a few different sized flowers
  
  
• Some cardstock or designer patterned paper
  
  
• Some adhesive such as a glue pen or a double sided tape runner
  
  
• Perhaps a circle punch for the centre, or you could use a brad, another shaped punch, or anything else that you think would make the centre of the flowers pretty
  
  
• Scissors with a sharp point are often very useful, but sometimes not really necessary – the punch can do all of the cutting for you!
  
  
• Pens or paints or other markers for adding a little depth to your blossoms with a few lines or accents. I use a lot of metallic pens for this, like gold, copper or silver or even all three with a little black to add more depth
  
  

• Step 1 - decide what size heart punch you want to use. It will be forming the petals. Punch out about seven hearts. You may need more or less, depending on the punch size and how much you want to overlap the hearts
  
  
• Steps 2 to 5 - Now use your markers or pens to make the centres seem more like blooms. I colour the point of my hearts as they will form the centres of the blossoms. I also run a little edge over the outside of the heart as shown in steps two and three
  
  
• Step 6 to 7 – Assemble your hearts together as shown, continuing until you have enough to make a flower. Put some adhesive behind each petal so it will stick to the last one. When you reach the last petal, slip it under the first and adhere it down
  
  
• Step 8 – Shape your flower with the shaping tool (this process is described below)
  
  
• Step 9 – punch out the centre of your flower. I used two punches here, a flower punch and a circle punch. If you use a flower punch like this where the petals are a silhouette, punch the flower first then punch out around it with your circle punch. If you try it the other way round, the circle will slip around in the flower punch and it be hard to get an even border
  
  
• Step 10 – With this centre decoration, I added accents to it with gold, silver and black pens then trimmed around the image with my sharp little scissors
  
  
• Step 11 – The shaped centre (See below)

For one finished effect, you can now use the flat shapes as they are. Just place the centre piece in the middle and glue it down. This is great for scrapbook albums where you don’t want too much bulk.

Would you like to know how to make paper flowers with a 3-d effect? I’ll show you that now -

To Make 3-d Flowers You Will Need:

• A shaping tool and
  
  
• A soft mat, such as a thick mouse pad turned over so the foam side is up. (You can actually buy special little flower shaping mats at some craft shops)
  
  

Here’s What to Do:

First take your flat, punched, assembled flower shapes and prepare to use the shaping tool

Starting with the petal layer, take your shaping tool and place the petal layer on the shaping mat. Use the larger, rounder end of the tool to press the petals, one by one, and carefully rub them into a cupped shape. Experiment until you get the effect you want or something that pleases you

Once you have shaped the petal edges a bit, press more firmlyright in the centre of this layer. Now your flower should be standing up a little and looking more real, kind of like a little shallow cup

Now take the centre shape (I’ll call this shape layer 2) and place it on the mat. Use the same rounded end of the tool to press right in the middle of this shape so it stand up around the edges

At this stage you have two layers of the flower done! All that remains to do is glue them together. Place layer 2 (the centre shape) on top of layer 1 (the petal shape) and glue away




You now know how to make paper flowers with your heart punches and are ready to adhere your finished flower to your project! Remember there are also step-by-step instructions for making Paper Roses on another page = why not consider using both on your project? :)




The flowers look quite different when they are done in different colours, in contrasting colours, with patterned paper, with stamped embossed images on them, and when you use different textured papers or other bits and pieces for the centres. You could also add layers to make a really full flower.

Once you know how to make paper flowers you will probably think of lots of different ways to use the end result, such as placing them

• on altered projects,
  
  
• on cards,
  
  
• on scrapbooking layouts
  
  
• on posters
  
  
• on hats that won’t get wet!
  
  

Did you think that learning how to make paper flowers was going to be hard? I hope you found it wasn't! Let your imagination go and enjoy your new found skill!

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