paper flowers tutorial

quickly skipping over the fact i haven't posted for months (too hot to spin/knit/crochet, too lazy to sew :)) and moving on to the fact that the fabulous paper flower tutorial on craftster has disappeared. so here's my version for dogsarecool.

1) start with a strip of paper. i use what is called sugar paper in the uk, it's fairly stiff paper, but not as stiff as thin card.

2) fold in half, then concertina. folding like this will make 8 petals (4 valleys), 3 valleys will make 6 petals.

3) fold in half to find the centre.

4) fasten at the centre with a staple, at the side where all the folds (valleys) are, not at the side that has the spare ends. you can fasten in different ways - if you want to make a wired crown you can make a hole and fasten with wire, weaving the ends together into a crown.

5) cut out petal shape. these will be symmetrical about the folds (valleys), which are at the base of this picture. there was some technical reason for the holes in the petals but i don't find it makes much difference whether they are there or not, but they look pretty :) you can cut one side, then fold across to the other and cut along the outline so both sides match (if that makes any sense at all...).

6) open out each petal, pressing the fold flat close to the staple.

7) to make a hibiscus/daffodil type flower use a wider strip of paper so you can cut a deeper centre/stamen section.

8) keep a solid centre or cut into strips for daffodil/narcissus, cut into stamens for hibiscus.

9) hibiscus stylee

10) half-heartedly opened out, you can smooth out the creases in each petal to help it stay open.

mail me if this isn't clear enough.