A beautiful wreath made with simple paper roses….

Some time ago, I found these little French books outside our local library. They were on the free giveaway table. The pages had such a pretty aged look to them and had such unusual blue illustrations, so I just had to snag two and figured I could find something to do with the paper. Eventually I opted for a simple and very easy option.                                                        

I decided to make a paper rose wreath.

It is very simple to do. Cut pages into ovals or circles; each page makes one flower. There is no precision required for this craft, at least not when I do it. 

Then you draw a spiral on to the oval and cut into it. There is a lot of cutting in this craft, which can be a little tedious. I stack a few pages together to cut them. I am also so lazy that I forgo the drawing and just cut freehand.

Starting on the outside of the spiral you start winding the paper into a tube. This can be a little fiddly to begin, but you will soon find a rhythm that suits you. Try and roll as tightly as possible.

Then before you glue it, you let it go a little. In that way it unravels and loosens up, but it will still hold it’s shape. Ta Da!!! A lovely little flower from an old book page.

 

A side view.

 

The little flappy piece of paper left over from twirling the spiral is where you place the glue in order to  hold the flower together. I definitely recommend a hot glue gun for this as it will dry so fast and hold the flower together better.

Here is the underside of the flower, this is a nice flat base to glue the flower to the wreath form.

I just think these flowers are darling…..Don’t you? This is where you settle down in front of some mindless TV and start making lots and lots of these. I have to sit with my 9 year old for homeschool (as he will not be productive if I don’t……Ahemm!!!) So I made these at my kitchen table while supervising 3rd grade.

I had an 8 inch foam wreath form in my craft supplies. First I covered it with pages from the book using the hot glue gun. This prevents the hot glue from melting the wreath form. It also gives the wreath a base, so that you are not able to see naked wreath form between the paper flowers. Then you just start gluing.

When you glue them to the form, make sure you bunch them right up against each other. They just look so great when they are clustered tightly together. Because some of my pages had illustrations, it made for some interesting color and texture on my wreath. I really love the turquoise blue shade coming through. I made sure to spread the colored roses around the form.

You can see that all my flowers look different. There is no rhyme or reason to my crafting. They are all different shapes and sizes…just like in nature. Please do not look too closely at the rolling and cutting….ayeyayeye!!!!

I used some black grosgrain ribbon to hang it on an wooden display cabinet in my living room. I like how it looks nice on the glass door.

Try not to notice my smeared glass and any dust….nothing is ever perfect!!!!

I am very happy with how this wreath turned out.  It is pretty and interesting. Let me know if you try it too.

Thanks for reading today,

♥ Criona