Poinsettias from the Page

 I love things made from book pages.  I recently went to a cute little shop in Orange County and saw a wall done with paper book flowers.  They were more springy looking.  Since it is time to decorate my space at Aubergine Emporium for the holidays, I decided to do my own rendition of a book flower.

Poinsettias by the Bunch

I started with a box I had laying around the house.  I used  a normal sized bread plate and traced it to make a back for the flower.

 I cut burlap circles larger than my cardboard and attached a ribbon on the back for hanging.

 Then I took spray glue and sprayed the burlap.  I cut slits in the excess burlap so that I could fold it over the cardboard neatly.

 Then I cut three sizes of poinsettia petals all in the same shape.  The actual largest petal was about the same length as the card board circle.  Then I made a slightly smaller petal and then a smaller petal still.  I put the patterns on book pages and cut them out.  I cut out five of each size petal for each flower I wanted to make.  Then I fan folded the base of the petal and taped it.  When I say fan folded, I first folded the base of the petal in half and fan folded out to each side.  Then I made the base of the folds flat and taped them so that I could glue gun them flat onto the cardboard.  You need to tape them so they stay flat and are easy to glue.  I laid down the largest petal first all the way around on the unfinished side of the cardboard.

 Next I took the middle size petal and folded them the same way at the base of the petal and then I glued them in between the large petals.  Be sure to leave a small circle in the center to put the center of your flower.

 Next do the same fan folding with the smallest petal and glue them in between the middle sized petals.  As you can see, I stayed in a pretty even circle in the middle.  Each layer goes directly in between the previous layer of petals.  You are still leaving that circle in the center.

Next take a little custard cup and cut circles like you did the larger back piece.  After these were cut, I took tissue paper garland (ivory color) and went around in a circle starting from the outer edge and working into the middle of the center piece of your flower.  I just used Tacky Glue to glue this down.  When that was done with the garland, I glue gunned the small circle into the center of my petals.

I purchased a sprig of red berries at Joann's Craft Store and cut off the little berries.  I glued them randomly over the center of the flowers to give them a little color.

When they were all finished, I cascaded them down my wall like a vine.  These would be beautiful on gifts at Christmas or also can be used as ornaments on the tree.  One caveat.  Each flower takes approximately an hour to make.  If you would like to use the pattern I mae for the petals, email me and I will send you the pattern.  little.miss.maggie@aol.com.

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