Paper Flowers

The daughter of a friend of mine is having paper flowers for her wedding bouquets.  I hadn't heard of these, so I looked them up.  There's all sorts of ways to make them.  They really are quite pretty!

My mom is moving into her own apartment in 2 weeks and she needs a decoration for the little shelf outside her door, so I thought of the paper flowers when I found a small yellow bucket downstairs.  Here's how they turned out:

I learned several things from this project.

1) They can be fun to make.  Here's the page I used for directions... http://jonesdesigncompany.com/flowers/rolled-paper-flowers-tutorial/

2) These are NOT for kids to make.  The hot glue burned me several times and it really hurt!  I've used hot glue a lot over the years, but because of how these had to be glued together at the end and how the leaves had to be glued, I got burnt several times.

3) Trying to do crafts when you have kids walking around is different than when you can do them while your kids are napping or asleep at night.  I felt a lot of pressure to get this project done as quickly as I could.  Having to hold the flowers, leaves, and stems in place took time and tied up my hands.  I finally realized that wooden clothespins helped me with the leaves so I could let them sit without me having to hold them together one by one.

4) Paper flowers are a fun, inexpensive decoration.  My mom is big about being frugal--she is the most frugal person I know.  So, I wanted to make her a fun, cute decoration that would only use craft supplies that I already have on hand.  

It was fun to try a new craft!