DIY Book Page Rose

This tutorial will show you how to make a single rose using pages from an old book. You can then display the flower on its own or make an entire bouquet!

You will need:

- 3 pages from a book (preferably an old and tatty book that would otherwise be heading for the bin). You will need 2-3 pages per rose you want to make. I've used pages from a hardback book that's on the large side, and obviously the bigger the book you use, the bigger the rose will be.

- Glue; PVA is good. I'm using Mod Podge matte finish which does the job well. You want it to dry clear and pliable.

- Scissors

- Pencil

- Modelling wire; I'm using 1.6mm aluminium armature wire. Aluminium wire is good because it's easy to bend

- Wire cutters

- Pliers; I use my round nose jewellery pliers to shape the wire, but any pliers or other tool you have that can put a loop in the wire is perfect.

- Vase/glass dome (optional); Something to display the rose in.

Step 1: Cut the Book Pages

Take a book page and cut off the white border so the paper is covered in text on both sides.

Then cut that piece in half.

You'll need 3 of these pieces for one flower, so cut up two book pages in this way.

Step 2: Fold Triangles

Fold each rectangle diagonally as shown in the photo.

Cut off the excess paper at the top to give yourself 3 perfect squares of paper in total. My squares ended up being about 9cm along each side.

Take each folded square and position it so it's like a pyramid with the folded edge at the bottom. Fold the left point over the right point and crease down the centre.

Repeat by first positioning the resulting triangle so that the folded edges are at the bottom and the flat open edge is at the top...then again folding it down the centre.

Step 3: Cut the Petals

Take each triangle and, with the open edge at the top, cut an arc to produce a petal shape that is symmetrical as you can make it.

When opened out, each of these 3 pieces of paper will now look like flower shapes.

Step 4: Cut the Flower Shapes

On one flower shape, cut out one of the petals (cutting along the folded lines).

On another flower, cut out two petals in one go.

And on the last flower, cut three petals out in one go.

Please note: You need to keep the pieces you have cut out in this step - you'll need them in a minute.

Cut a very small notch out of the centre of each piece. This hole only needs to be big enough for a wire to go through later.

Step 5: Glue the Cone Shapes

Fold up each of the flower shapes into a cone and glue in place.

Overlap by one whole petal i.e. add glue over a whole petal, as seen in the photos.

Cut a tiny hole in the point of each cone.

Step 6: Curl the Petals

Carefully curl the edges of the petals over your pencil to give a nice shape.

Step 7: Make the Other Paper Shapes Into Cones

These 3 pieces of paper were what you cut out of the flower shapes in step 4.

Take the smallest piece and roll up into a spiral with a point at one end; a very narrow cone shape.

Then make the other two pieces into cones (rather than spirals) by glueing down one edge and wrapping them into the conical shape. You don't want much overlap; just enough to hold the cones together.

Step 8: Putting the Petals Onto the Wire

Cut a piece of aluminium wire that is as long as you want the rose stem to be, plus a little bit extra. My wire was around 25cm long.

Make a small hoop at one end. If it fits snugly, push the wire loop into the open end of the smallest cone with a small amount of glue. If it doesn't fit, put a small hole through the base of that small cone, feed the end of the wire through the hole and re-form that loop. Basically, you just need to attach the end of the wire to the widest part of the small cone.

Line up the other paper pieces in order from smallest to largest, ready to be threaded onto the wire.

Step 9: Assembling the Flower

Thread the wire through all of the other cone pieces now, from smallest to largest, to form the rose shape.

Add a tiny blob of glue to the underside of the hole in the flower - this is just to hold the flower in place on the wire so it keeps it's correct position and doesn't move.

Next, cut the half-a-book-page left over from earlier into thin strips.

Start underneath the flower and glue one end (with PVA/Mod Podge) to the wire, at a slight downwards angle.

Add a little glue to a short section of wire and wrap the strip around it tightly. Add more glue on top of the paper to keep it in place.

Repeat this all of the way down the wire, except for a short bit at the bottom so you can hold the wire here without getting covered in glue!

Once most of the wire has been wrapped in paper and coated in glue, leave to dry.

Step 10: Adding Leaves and Sepals

This is an optional step but I think it looks much better with these parts added.

For the leaves, I cut out basic leaf shapes from a book page, folded them down the centre and cut little slits all around the outside for a bit of texture detail.

I then glued these onto the stem. I pointed them almost vertical to glue, but later (once the glue is dry) I'll carefully cut the paper a little bit at the base of the leaves to lower them to the angle I want. It's too fiddly to do this whilst everything has glue on, trust me :)

I then cut out 4 sepals and curled them over a pencil. I made the base of these shapes wide to make them easier to wrap around the flower.

I glued 2 sepals on first, each on opposite sides of the flower, with the sepals curlling outwards. Then I added the other two.

Step 11: Finished!

So now you have made one pretty rose!

Once you've made one, it becomes a lot quicker to make more, so you'll have a bouquet in no time..good for a mother's day gift right? :)

Step 12: Glass Dome Display

I thought I'd 'Beauty-and-the-Beast-ify' the rose, since the film has just been released and I like nothing more than to be on trend (...) so I added a spiral to the wire and stood it up inside a glass dome I already had. It actually does look pretty cool.

However, I will be keeping my rose in a vase not a dome. If you are wanting to permanently keep the rose in a dome, then you could drill a hole into the base that's the same diameter as the wire, so it looks a lot neater (and hides the excess wire).

Or you could use the spiral method but make a handful of curled rose petals to cover the base with and hide the spiral bit.

Thanks for reading!

Step 13: Video

And I've also made a video of the process, in case you prefer your tutorials in that form instead :)