Paper Flowers

A while back, Julia, aka The Spotted Sparrow, blogged about this paper flower tutorial from a blog called "It's In the Details." It shows how to make flowers from old sewing patterns!

I got excited right away -- I just loved the look, and the way the flowers are finished off with buttons! Unfortunately, I don't own a Sizziz -- that cool tool that perfectly cuts paper from a template. But I thought, how hard can it be to use scissors? First I made a stencil, then I traced it on, and then I cut. And cut. And cut.

Well, it was a little messy, but it did work with scissors!

At that point, it was actually very relaxing -- because, once you get all the flowers cut from both the tissue pattern and the instruction sheets, you get to separate the thin, wispy tissue flowers and alternate them in little piles with the thicker instruction paper!

It was fun choosing buttons for the middle of the flowers, and sewing through all the layers of paper. I decorated one with beads, but actually preferred the look of the buttons alone.

I actually liked my flowers better than the ones in the original tutorial -- they're imperfect and that's more my style!

What I liked most of all about this project was that I cut twice and got four flowers! It's one of those crafts that gives you a good return on your time investment.