Make It: Pretty paper bouquet for your Valentine

Create a sweeter sentiment this Valentine’s Day by making your own original rose bouquets out of recycled paper. You can also use these beautiful rosebuds to decorate your handmade cards.

With a few supplies, a little time, watch your love bloom when you hand them a big bunch of handmade flowers they can treasure forever.

Full step-by-step instructions -->Photos: Make It: Pretty Paper Flowers>

What you’ll need:

• Recycled newspaper, old maps, craft paper
• ½ inch wide ribbon, cut to 4-inch lengths
• Craft wire cut to 15-inch lengths
• Glue gun
• Glue sticks (low temp)
• Scissors
• Wire cutters

Gather all your materials, checking to make sure your paper is flexible enough to curl or roll up with your fingers.

Full step-by-step instructions -->Photos: Make It: Pretty Paper Flowers>

You’ll be cutting five different sizes of petals, from about ½ inch to 3 inches wide. You can use a template or for a more natural, organic look, freehand each petal. Cut out four of each size – about 20 petals total.

 

Take your time and roll the edges of each petal, pinching the base slightly. Shape all your petals prior to gluing, taking care to make each one a little different.

Don’t forget the center! Cut one more shape out for each of the flowers you make, the coiled center of each rose. Measure this center petal about 2-2 ½ inches long with a rounded tip.

Roll this up to make a tube shape, then unroll and place one small bead of glue. Quickly reroll around the end of one of your chosen stem material - I used a paper straw.

Add another dot of glue if needed.

To attach the petals, start with your smallest shapes, attaching each with a dot of glue, overlapping each one slightly. Then continue on, rotating around  your stem.

Get creative here, pinching the petals at the bottom to create each rosebud or bloom to grow organically. As the petals get larger, make sure the overlapping space gets a little wider.

The sepal of the flower is made by the ribbon and will double as the cover of your seams. Cut a little notch in the ribbon to wrap around the bottom and cover your glue.

To make a bunch, gather up a dozen or so blooms and tie a ribbon around the stems. To glue onto Valentine’s Day cards or decorate other things, cut the bloom near the base of the flower and glue where needed!

Full step-by-step instructions -->Photos: Make It: Pretty Paper Flowers>

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Twinkle VanWinkle was born in a small town in Mississippi. A life-long lover of music, media and food, she grew up following those three things along her path. She has almost 20 years of professional cooking under her apron strings, feeding thousands of friends, family and other folks while working in restaurants and bakeries in Oxford, Miss. She baked apple pies for the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and appeared on Food Network's “The Best Of...” in the same year. Along with producing dynamic lifestyle content for LIN Media, she is a mother, musician and social media fanatic.

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