Glitterfest Roses from Book Pages

One of my fellow dealers at Aubergine Emporium brought in two beautiful wreaths adorned with roses made from coffee filters.  She sort of explained to me how she did them so I tried to duplicate the process  only mine have some book pages inserted into the rose and I outlined the book petals with  silver glitter.  Unfortunately you cannot see the glitter in the photos.  Unlike my Poinsettias from the Page project, these roses take between 5 to 10 minutes to assemble and I literally made them from things I had in the house.

 Small white paper plates would have been better, but I had none on hand so I took a dinner size paper Christmas plate and cut the rim off and then cut the circle in quarters to make a back for the rose.

 I used the coffee filters to come up with a pattern for the book page.  The coffee filters are cut into quarters so I tried to make the width of the book petal as wide as the widest part of the quartered coffee filter.  Then instead of making it a triangular shape like the coffee filter section, I made a wider base as shown in the photo.  I cut a little dip in the shape because rose petals are not perfectly straight across.  I outlined one side of the page petal with Tacky Glue and dipped it in silver glitter.  I used German glitter I bought from an Etsy shop.  It has a slight antique tarnished silver look.

 Each rose needs 5 of these glittered petals.

I used white and brown coffee filters and cut them in quarters.  You can cut a whole bunch at one time and separate them into a pile of white and brown petals.  I started with 5 pieces of the white slightly overlapping the edges of each petal as I went in a circle.  I used one of the quarter pieces of the paper plate as my base for this project.  Now figure out how high you can count and that's how many hot glue sticks I used.  Seriously.  I used one after another after another and so on.  So lay down 5 white petals in a circle using a hot glue gun.  It just takes too long to use Tacky Glue for this part. 

 Now on top of that use 5 brown quarters and do exactly the same thing.

 When that was done, I took 3 white petals and placed them in a circle on top of the the brown layer.  Then I took 3 brown petals and placed them on top of the 3 white petals kind of placing them in between.  So now you have the plate quarter as your base and 4 layers of coffee filter petals.  Understand?  Now take the book page petals and fold just the base of the petal and sort of pleat from each side in.  If you saw my poinsettia project it is very similar except we are not using tape.  I pleated or gathered the base of the petal scrunching it in at the bottom of the petal.  I stuck a glob of hot glue down and then using a thick wood skewer, I took the flat end and tamped it down after I placed the petal in place.  Put down 4 book petals for this layer.

 On top of that layer, I put 3 more brown petals always working in a circle.  On top of the brown layer place 3 white petals.  When I am saying petals, I mean the coffee filter quarters.

 Now take your fifth book page petal and roll it up with the glitter side on the inside of the roll.  Scrunch the bottom and make a little fold.  Use the folded part to make your flower center stand straight up in the center of the flower.  In other words, your flower center will have an L-shaped base.  Glue that flat part of the L-shape into the center of the flower.  Put another glob of glue in the middle of your flower petals and tamp your rolled up page petal into the center.

 When that has been placed, take 3 more brown petals and drizzle some glue down into the base around the page petal and stuff the brown petals in.  Then do this again with 3 white petals.  DO NOT put the glue on the petal before you place it.  You will mess up the layers you have already done.  Just drizzle glue into the flower aiming for the inside base of your last completed layer.  Tamp it down with the wood skewer.  As you get to the last layers it is getting tighter and tighter in the center so as you place the glue and stuff the petals in you are not going to see the glue spots.  They are hidden by the stuffing procedure you are doing.  But the glue will hold the petal in place.  Here is one of my finished roses.  Believe me, it takes longer to read this tutorial than it did to make a rose.  Once you start moving on this project it goes very fast.

 Here is a photo of the wreath that Debbie brought in that inspired me to do this project.  I love the glittered bird.  She made little streamers with the coffee filters and rolled up book pages and placed them behind the rose.  For her flower centers, she pleated narrow strips of book pages and glued them into the centers.  On the original rose I made I did the petals around a wooden dowel and built the rose up in the same way.  Doing it this way, you could stick the roses into the tree branches of your Christmas tree, but the way I did it here for you, you could use a hole punch and punch holes in the paper plate base and run ribbon or string through the base and make a gift box tie and use that instead of a ribbon bow.

I will be participating in the following link parties today.