Practical Tips for Making Large Paper Roses With Tutorial, Part 1

Have you ever made giant paper flowers?  I've been working on some (ahem, okay, bunches and bunches!) to decorate for a Valentine dinner.  There are lots of great tutorials on YouTube for all kinds of paper flowers, and I've tried enough of them to feel capable of offering this tutorial full of practical tips to hopefully help you in your own flowery endeavors.

I've been using white, red, and champagne/ivory colors for my roses--here I'm trying Classic Linen Card Stock in a really pretty Natural White.  You will find all the Classic Crest and Linen card stock on sale this month at CutCardStock.  For these roses, you'll also need scissors and a glue gun with lots of glue sticks.

If you have a cool melt glue gun, I recommend using that.  If not, have a nice little bowl of ice water nearby.  Unless you are way more careful than I am, you will burn yourself once in a while.

Fold the paper in half lengthwise (hotdog).  This will leave you space to cut six petals, two at a time, with the fold and opposite opening working as a loose guideline for the top and bottom of the petals.  If you alternate the top and bottom of the petals (as pictured), there will be room for wider petals.
Some people like to use a template, but I prefer to work without one.  For me, it avoids an unnecessary step, and prevents the flowers from all looking exactly alike.  Next, either open a pair of petals cut on the fold, or glue the ends of two petals together.

As an optional step, but one I find helpful, use a pencil or glue stick or whatever to lightly roll the top two edges of each petal.  You could also use a bone folder (or knife, or chopstick), using the bone folder scraping technique.

 Bring up one side of each opposite petal and glue them together.  Repeat on the opposite side--you may alternate which petal overlaps on each side, or have the same petal hug the other one, whichever you prefer.  The size of the opening in the center of the rose is also at your discretion.

At this point, the bottom of the rose looks like this.

Add two more petals, one at a time at the opposite sides of the first petals.

If you want your flowers to be more open and larger, attach the new petals to each other, rather than to the first set of petals.

For the next page of petals, I make four petals per page, rather than six.  I like to fold the paper twice for this, using the fold lines as a guide for the size of the petals.  If the petals are wide enough, you can continue to attach them to each other.  If not, you can attach them to the flower itself.  Another option is this:

Using a scrap from the cuttings, create a little bandage, an attach them as shown.  The patch won't show as long as you are adding another layer.

If you find additional petals too large at the base, feel free to give them a little trim--see how that will fit inside the base of the rose?

Each piece of paper will make the diameter of your rose grow an inch or more, all depending on how open or closed you adhere the petals.

These will eventually join their many brethren in adorning a focal wall at the aforementioned dinner, but for now, a nice platter of roses on the kitchen table makes for some fun Valentine décor.  Wouldn't these be great for a wedding, as well?

UPDATE:  I will be back on Feb 20th with how to make these roses even larger, and tips on how to hang them.  To see how to make these large paper roses grow even larger, and how to hang them, check out THIS POST.

:)trisha