The beginning of summer is the time of flowering of peonies, they only fade very quickly. And I would like to admire the delicate and sophisticated flowers both in the dank autumn and the icy winter! Everyone can make a small miracle and make a realistic, delicate and beautiful peony from corrugated paper with their own hands.
A bouquet made of such flowers will not fade and will perfectly decorate the interior in any style.
A few words about peonies
Like tulips from the Dutch, chrysanthemum from the Japanese, and peony has been a favorite national flower in China for over 1500 years. In our country, this plant is also popular and quite often found in gardens. There are several types of peonies :
- thin-leaved;
- drug;
- milk flowering;
- Wittmann;
- Mlokosevich.
If you make a peony from corrugated paper with your own hands, then, perhaps, information about the types of structure of the flowers of this plant will be useful.
They are:
1. Non-double (simple) - with many stamens and five or more petals arranged in a row.
2. Half-terry:
- anemone - with one row of wide petals, in the center of which there are modified stamens painted in the same color as the petals;
- Japanese - consist of wide petals (of which there are 5 or more) located around a dense disk with many mutated stamens, usually painted yellow;
- typically semi-terry - they are distinguished by many petals laid in two or three rows, with a large number of real stamens.
3. Terry - a flower in such plants consists of many petals. The following subgroups are distinguished:
- hemispherical - with narrow and strongly dissected inner and wide outer petals;
- pink-like flowers, as a rule, have flowers of a somewhat flattened shape, consisting of compactly collected narrow inner and wide outer petals;
- semi-pink - very similar to the previous species, differ only in the presence of a small number of stamens in the center;
- crown - the most complex peonies in flower structure: the first outer single row are wide petals, then narrow; the core consists of wide petals raised in the form of a crown.
Material Features
Originally crumpled, or, as it is often called, corrugated paper was used as a lining material for hats. Over time, such paper began to be used to make a variety of crafts.
There are several types of it, depending on the degree of compression and the size of the folds. To make flowers from paper: peonies, hyacinths, roses and others - the so-called crepe paper is best suited, velvety, soft and delicate, with small corrugation.
Everything you need
Before you start making paper flowers, you need to prepare the following:
- white corrugated paper;
- glass container;
- food colors of the colors you need, for example yellow and red;
- wire or wooden skewers;
- scissors;
- double sided tape;
- green ribbon or corrugated paper of this color;
- hot glue gun or quick-drying glue;
- thread floss or any others for embroidery.
Preparatory work
If you decide to make a peony of corrugated paper with your own hands, for greater realism, it is better to take not color, but white. The latter can be painted with a naturalistic color of the petals. Food coloring must be diluted in water. For coloring the inner petals, you can take a more saturated red, and for the outer ones - mix yellow and red. We cut out square blanks from white squeezed paper and carefully immerse them in the prepared dye. When the paper is saturated, we take it out and allow excess moisture to drain. The resulting workpieces can be dried by laying on a saucer and drying for 20-30 seconds in a microwave.
Before staining all the petals, try to color several blanks and look at the correct selection of the proportions of the dyes.
Make the core
While the prepared blanks are drying, we make the basis on which we will collect the peony from corrugated paper with our own hands.
- We collect the core of the flower: we make a ball the size of a walnut from cotton wool or paper.
- We wrap a wooden skewer or wire prepared in advance, greased with glue, green paper or ribbon.
- On double-sided tape, glue the threads for embroidery, cut into pieces of 3-5 cm.
- We fix the resulting workpiece on the core of the flower - as a result, you should get a small yellow brush.
Picking a flower
Before collecting voluminous peonies from corrugated paper, it is necessary to cut heart-shaped petals from painted blanks. Internal (3-5 cm) should be less than external (5-7 cm). To give the petals a more realistic look with your fingers, we stretch the paper both across and along and give the necessary round shape.
Around the finished core, starting from the inside, glue the petals until the flower acquires the desired size. We carefully straighten them so that the peony from corrugated paper, created with our own hands, looks somewhat carelessly, like a real flower.
Simpler option
The above method requires perseverance and accuracy, moreover, it is quite laborious, but there is an easier and simpler method. This will require several multi-colored pieces of corrugated paper 25–40 cm long, depending on the size and color of the flower you want (for example, pink, purple and orange). To make peony flowers from corrugated paper, follow these steps:
- We put the rectangles on top of each other and neatly fold, as shown in the photo, five to six times.
- The resulting accordion is bandaged in the middle with wire.
- Cut the edges of the workpiece with scissors "heart", "fence" or as you like. You can try to fold the part in half and cut the desired shape, but the beautiful and neat edges of the petals are unlikely to work.
- Starting from the petals located in the center, we lift and pull them up.
- You can give them the desired shape, stretching them both across and along the folds.
We do with children
Let's look at another simple way to make peony from crumpled paper. It is suitable for co-creation with children. Of the materials you need only bright-colored corrugated paper, wire, scissors and glue.
So, we proceed:
- cut five to seven rectangles of 20-25x15 cm in size from the crumpled paper;
- we add each of them with an “accordion”, 5-7 folds;
- we assemble the “accordion” rectangle in the middle;
- on both sides of the paper with the help of scissors we round the petals;
- do all these procedures with each of the prepared rectangles;
- with a thin wire we bind them together;
- glue the wooden skewer or wire with green paper;
- on the resulting stem we attach the formed flower;
- straighten the petals, arching their fingers in or out.
Thus, it is quite simple to make flowers from corrugated paper in stages and decorate your home with them or present such an elegant bouquet to your loved ones.