Hybrid Flower Tutorial

I love paper flowers. Of all of the things I can make from paper, I think paper flowers are my most favorite to create. They’re fairly simple, and have a pretty big impact when added to a card or gift box.

Today I’m going to show you how I made the flowers that adorn this card. If you’re looking at the card and thinking, “Wait, I don’t remember seeing those papers in any kit in Penny’s shop!” well, you’re right. This card is your first sneak peek to the amazing release Penny has coming this weekend! Stay tuned, you DEFINITELY don’t want to miss this! As you can see, the papers alone are exquisite.

Supplies:

• digital papers
• 6-petal flower punch
• 1.25″ scalloped circle punch
• large glue dots
• brads
• pearl rhinestone
• glitter and glitter adhesive (optional)
• paper piercer
• dry embossing stylus
• fun foam pad

I started by creating an 8.5×11″ canvas in Photoshop CS5. I created four 4.25×5.5″ rectangles with each one on a separate layer. Then I clipped my papers to the rectangles and printed them out. Because I’m making flowers, I want the paper to be double-sided. I use Epson matte presentation paper and it works well to print on both sides. In order to make sure I had the same pattern on both sides of the paper, I flipped my image vertically and then printed it out again.

After printing, I flipped my 6-petal punch over so I could see where I was punching.

I punched out four flowers.

I started by making the center layer, the four-petal flower. I cut one of the petals out like a pie slice.

Then I added a glue dot to one petal, and folded the other petal over to meet it, lining up the scallops to form one petal.

To form the 5-petal flower, cut halfway into the punched out piece and then add a glue dot and bring one side over to meet the other, similar to what was done in the previous step.

To form the last two 6-petal layers, I added some dimension by taking the wrong end of my dry embossing stylus and pressing down on the petal ends and in the center of each flower. I like to emboss using a thick piece of fun foam under the piece I’m working with, as it provides support but also just enough give to allow the paper to yield to the pressure of the stylus.

I apologize for the blurry photo – it’s really hard to photograph your own hand. But you get the general idea.

You can see that I flipped one of the 6-petal flowers over and pressed down in the middle so that the petals are curving away from the center instead of toward it. This flower will be the bottom piece.

After all of the layers were formed, I used my paper piercer to punch a hole in the center of each flower.

Doing this step makes it much easier to add the brad to the center to hold the whole flower together.

This little pink flower is pretty cute by itself, but I like adding other small touches to pack additional punch. For this one I chose to add an adhesive flat-backed pearl to the center of the flower. Then I ran my Zig 2-way glue pen around the edges of the petals, and dumped my PK Glitz crystal glitter on top.

I picked up the flower with my tweezers, gave the flower a light tap, and then used the index card to funnel the excess glitter back into the container.

Voila! Now I have a sweet pink flower with just a hint of bling.

I made two of these flowers to set on either side of the brown carnation flower. The carnation flower is a little bit easier, because all you do after punching out the pieces is pierce the center, add a brad to hold it all together, and then start wrinkling each layer toward the center.

I used six pieces for this flower. For the first four pieces I tried to get the design of the paper in the center of the scalloped circle, but then I realized it wasn’t going to show much so I threw caution to the wind and just punched away.

I stacked all six pieces up and poked a hole in the middle using my paper piercer.

Then I added the brad to the center and started folding up my individual layers.

Once all of the layers were crumpled up, I started pulling them back down just a touch to relax the flower a tiny bit. You can see on the card that it’s a bit more open than it is in the photo above.

I sprayed this flower with some shimmer mist to add just a tiny bit of sparkle. Unfortunately, you can’t really see it in the photos but it is a nice, subtle touch that’s visible in person.

I used small glue dots to adhere the flowers to the card. The sentiment is from the Creations2Fill stamp set by The {Stamps} of Life. I popped the scalloped circle up using some 3-D foam adhesive squares. I added a line of 1/4″ wide red line tape to the bottom and then ruffled the sheer pink ribbon at the bottom of the card.

I’d love to see what you make using this tutorial to add some sweet paper flowers to your projects, so be sure to leave a comment with a gallery link!