DIY Paper Flower Bouquet

Today we have such an exciting and creative DIY project from paper flower maven Rachael over at Appetite Paper. She’s stopping by to show us how to create this vibrant and artful paper flower bouquet filled with ranunculus, anemonies, poppies, and a darling peony.

These paper flowers are made using crepe paper, acrylic paint, and to add some life-likeness to the mix, preserved greenery. This may not be the quickest DIY, but it sure is the most rewarding. You can make these to pretty up your office desk, your home or decorate your wedding tables.

What you need:

Floral wire (16G)
Floral tape
Scissors
Hot glue gun
Glue sticks
Paint brush
1/2” polystyrene spheres (for anemone and poppy)
3/4” polystyrene spheres (for ranunculus)

Crepe paper colors:

Cream
French vanilla
Goldenrod
Sage
Sweet Pea
Bubblegum
Pink peony
Pink tulip
Salmon

Acrylic paint colors:

White
Light green
Dark orange
Dark pink

Paper Ranunculus Guide:

Cut out your top, bud, large petals, and base. Hot glue the polystyrene sphere to the floral wire and cover the sphere with the top piece of paper. Now wrap the bud you cut out around the sphere and then hot glue your large petals to the sphere. Crepe paper colors used: two flowers in cream, two flowers in french vanilla, and two flowers in goldenrod.

Paper Anemone Guide:

Cut out your center, stamen, petals, and base. Paint your stamen with white acrylic paint across the bottom. With scissors, fringe your stamen strip. Hot glue your polystyrene sphere to floral wire and cover the center you cut out. Wrap your stamen around the center of your flower and add ten petals with hot glue. Crepe paper colors used: three flowers in sweet pea with sage.

Paper Icelandic Poppy Guide:

Cut out your center, stamen, petals, and base. Start by painting your stamen strip with light green acrylic paint across the bottom and then fringe your stamen strip, just like the anemone flowers. Hot glue the polystyrene sphere to your floral wire and cover with the center piece of paper. Wrap the stamen around the flower and glue four petals. Crepe paper colors used: one flower in salmon, one flower in pink peony, one flower in bubblegum with goldenrod.

Paper Peony Guide:

Cut out your center, stamen, small petals, large petals, and base. Add some sweet hand painted details to the stamen and the center. Glue your center piece to the floral wire and wrap the fringed stamen around the center. For a quicker version, staple each group of petals together. Once those are created, glue the paper petal groups. Crepe paper colors used: one flower in salmon, pink tulip, and goldenrod.

Once you’ve got your beautiful flowers prepped for assembly, group the anemones, poppies, and the peony together and make sure to trim down the bouquet stems to your size. Here we have them at 10”.

Tie them stems together with a thin rubber band and start slowly bending the wires so the flowers can face forward. This also leaves space for the greenery.

Add in sprays by putting in bunches in the spaces one at a time, bending wires and making them look as organic as possible. In this bouquet, we used fauxlong eucalyptus, faux silver dollar eucalyptus, and faux evergreen, but feel free to choose whatever suits you and the bouquet. All of these greens are preserved, so they will last as long as your paper flowers will!

We love ribbon accents, so tying off this bouquet with a long and flowing ribbon from Silk and Willow is the perfect way to finish up these project! For more fun projects like these from Rachael, head over to Appetite Paper and take a gander at her paper flower selection.