Paper hydrangeas
I can't remember exactly where I saw this the first time, but it was probably Pinterest when I was looking for something else. Paper hydrangeas!
I didn't really have a reason to try this Cricut project out until my friend and co-worker (who loves flowers and crafts and pink shiny paper) announced she was getting married. Making a few flowers for decoration was the perfect excuse.
I followed this tutorial for assembly, and I won't be mad if you leave this post and do the same. Her photos are a bit more clear on the steps, and she's got the blossom/leaf template available for download.
NOTE: this isn't a difficult project, but it is fairly time consuming.
Supplies
Process
1. Get a template, cut out all the blossoms and leaves. If you don't have a machine to do this part for you it doesn't mean you can't do it, just that this step will be more of a pain in the neck. For a half dome, 30-40 blossoms was about enough. For a full dome, I needed more like 60.
2. put a dot of light green in the center of each blossom
In the tutorial I followed, she applied a light paint wash, but I skipped that and I don't feel like I missed out. Personal preference.
3. Curl each blossom petal up, so the colored-in center looks like it's at the bottom of a dish (sorry, not shown). This might seem weird, but I did it wrong the first time and then the blossoms didn't quite fit together right. I rolled each petal around a pencil to get a good curl.
4. Trim floral wire into a bunch of stems. Better too long than too short, you can always cut them down later. Mine are just over a foot long, and that was way more than enough. They are also a little lumpy because they came rolled around a flat piece of cardboard, but whatever.
5. Separate into bundles of 30
6. Wrap floral wire around the main stem and splay the last 2-3" into a dome shape. The photo shows a half dome, and that would be fine if it were going on a wreath or some other kind of backing, but I recommend a full dome. They always ended up being noticeably bigger than I expected, too, so keep that in mind.
7. Curl the very ends of the wires into circles and bend them 90ยบ. This creates a flat base for the blossoms to be glued to. I used a pair of round-tipped jewelry pliers, but regular needlenose would work.
8. Glue one blossom to each wire circle.
Here's where the whole/half dome thing becomes important. This half dome (my first attempt) looks great from above, and didn't need many more blossoms glued in between to look full.
But it looks kind of silly from the side, like the bottom half of the flower is missing. Which it is. In the linked tutorial, she covered the bottom of the half dome with three leaves. I opted to do something a little different.
I followed the same steps for the next one, but bent the wire ends out into a full dome. The overall shape is better, but it looks a lot more sparse.
So Step 9 is to glue in supplementary blossoms between the ones on the wire until it looks like a ball of blossoms. For me, this ended up at least doubling the number of blossom cutouts I needed.
10. Glue on the leaves. I also used the same light green colored pencil to draw in veins, but that's optional. I pinched just the bottom end of the leaf so it folded down the middle, but not a sharp crease, and angled it so I could glue the leaf along a flat edge up the side of the stem. You can see where I glued the leaf in the center of the photo, the stem essentially follows the bottom two veins on the left side of the leaf. I ended up using Tacky Glue instead of hot glue for this, but I don't think it matters unless hot glue doesn't stick to floral tape.
Also optional: finishing spray with a little bit of glitter for some extra sheen.
I didn't really have a reason to try this Cricut project out until my friend and co-worker (who loves flowers and crafts and pink shiny paper) announced she was getting married. Making a few flowers for decoration was the perfect excuse.
I followed this tutorial for assembly, and I won't be mad if you leave this post and do the same. Her photos are a bit more clear on the steps, and she's got the blossom/leaf template available for download.
NOTE: this isn't a difficult project, but it is fairly time consuming.
Supplies
- paper (any kind or color, printer paper is fine)
- colored pencil, marker, or paint for the center (I used a chartreuse colored pencil)
- floral wire, as thin as you can find
- floral tape
- needlenose or round-tipped pliers
- hot glue gun
Process
1. Get a template, cut out all the blossoms and leaves. If you don't have a machine to do this part for you it doesn't mean you can't do it, just that this step will be more of a pain in the neck. For a half dome, 30-40 blossoms was about enough. For a full dome, I needed more like 60.
2. put a dot of light green in the center of each blossom
In the tutorial I followed, she applied a light paint wash, but I skipped that and I don't feel like I missed out. Personal preference.
3. Curl each blossom petal up, so the colored-in center looks like it's at the bottom of a dish (sorry, not shown). This might seem weird, but I did it wrong the first time and then the blossoms didn't quite fit together right. I rolled each petal around a pencil to get a good curl.
4. Trim floral wire into a bunch of stems. Better too long than too short, you can always cut them down later. Mine are just over a foot long, and that was way more than enough. They are also a little lumpy because they came rolled around a flat piece of cardboard, but whatever.
5. Separate into bundles of 30
6. Wrap floral wire around the main stem and splay the last 2-3" into a dome shape. The photo shows a half dome, and that would be fine if it were going on a wreath or some other kind of backing, but I recommend a full dome. They always ended up being noticeably bigger than I expected, too, so keep that in mind.
7. Curl the very ends of the wires into circles and bend them 90ยบ. This creates a flat base for the blossoms to be glued to. I used a pair of round-tipped jewelry pliers, but regular needlenose would work.
8. Glue one blossom to each wire circle.
Here's where the whole/half dome thing becomes important. This half dome (my first attempt) looks great from above, and didn't need many more blossoms glued in between to look full.
But it looks kind of silly from the side, like the bottom half of the flower is missing. Which it is. In the linked tutorial, she covered the bottom of the half dome with three leaves. I opted to do something a little different.
I followed the same steps for the next one, but bent the wire ends out into a full dome. The overall shape is better, but it looks a lot more sparse.
So Step 9 is to glue in supplementary blossoms between the ones on the wire until it looks like a ball of blossoms. For me, this ended up at least doubling the number of blossom cutouts I needed.
10. Glue on the leaves. I also used the same light green colored pencil to draw in veins, but that's optional. I pinched just the bottom end of the leaf so it folded down the middle, but not a sharp crease, and angled it so I could glue the leaf along a flat edge up the side of the stem. You can see where I glued the leaf in the center of the photo, the stem essentially follows the bottom two veins on the left side of the leaf. I ended up using Tacky Glue instead of hot glue for this, but I don't think it matters unless hot glue doesn't stick to floral tape.
Also optional: finishing spray with a little bit of glitter for some extra sheen.
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