WRMK :: Valentine Bouquet w/ Crepe Paper Flowers

Happy Almost-Heart Day!  I'm celebrating February 14th with a special bouquet that I made from crepe paper and We R Memory Keepers heart dies.

If you haven't gotten hold of any Petal Paper from DCWV yet, I highly recommend it!  It's nice, heavy-weight crepe paper that comes in multiple colors and sizes and there are so many things you can do with it.  Before this project, I had never made a flower from crepe paper!  I was able to learn by visiting a few different blogs and YouTube channels, and then took a mashup of what I'd seen to create my own flowers.  You don't need much to make your own--the crepe paper is essential--and floral wire and tape are also extremely helpful.

Being for Valentine's Day, I really wanted to utilize hearts in some way, and after seeing a tutorial for paper roses where the individual petals were heart-shaped, I led with that.  I recently received a set of We R Memory Keepers nested heart dies.  They're nice to use with the Revolution cutting machine, but the 2 sizes I used on this project fit the Mini Evolution perfectly so I used that machine instead.

Cut the crepe paper down to fit the size of your dies.  I used orange for the larger dies and pink for the smaller hearts.  If you have an even stack, you can cut 4-5 pieces of crepe paper at a time, which is a huge timesaver!  The hearts cut out perfectly every time.  You'll want to be sure you cut out the hearts with the grain of the paper--the wrinkles should be vertical.

In my tutorial viewing, I learned that 'cupping' is the key to great-looking flowers.  This means holding the petal between your thumb and forefinger and gently pulling it horizontally.  The tops of the petals will stretch out and curl.

To create my flowers, whose outer shapes loosely resemble open tulips, I adhered 3 hearts together.  This was another time-saver when it came to assembling the flowers.  After adhering, I put the sets aside to work on the flower centers.

There are a few different types of centers you can choose for your own flowers; I liked the kind made from fringe.  They were easy to create and work with; for the larger orange florals, I cut 2" x 6" strips of pale pink crepe and fringe-cut them with scissors, leaving about 1/4" uncut as a base.  For the smaller pink flowers, I cut 1.5" x 3" strips or orange paper and fringed those.  I added some thickness to them by gently twisting each fringe.

You'll wrap these around the tip of your floral wire, adhering them in place.  For extra security, I then wound a small piece of floral tape around the bottom.  You can use 1 or 2 lengths of your fringe strips; depending on the opening of your crepe paper flower.

Once the centers are in place, you can begin to build the flowers.  Just adhere the petal trios one at a time, wrapping them around the center.  Secure each one with floral tape as you wish, or every couple, to your liking.  The thickness of the flower is up to you.  Each of mine turned out slightly different, but I think that makes for a more varied bouquet.  Again, there are many crepe paper flower tutorials out there if you want to make a different kind of bouquet or if you'd like to add some leaves to your design.

After my flowers were complete, I arranged them in some pretty 10" x 10" patterned paper, adding a few extra details like the Crate Paper heart shaker sticker in the center (adhered to an extra piece of floral wire) and some polka dotted tissue paper to dress it up.  If I'm feeling brave enough, I'll have my son and daughter help me make a few more flowers for them to give to their teachers on Valentine's Day.  It's such a cute gift--and they don't need water!  Enjoy your Heart Day!

Supplies:
WRMK Mini Evolution
WRMK Revolution Die - Basic Hearts

DCWV Petal Paper