Handmade gifts from someone special can be ultimately priceless. It can be anything; knitted scarf, portrait painting, or it can be a paper floral wreath. Why don't you make one for your beloved ones? Mother, Teacher, kids, and best friend of yours will definitely love it! Let's tell them how priceless their existence is.

There are many different tools used and different ways in making paper flowers. In this instructable, I would like to share how I make my flowers with simple tools you can find in your household. As you can see at the last picture above, this paper floral wreath instructable consist of 4 kind of flowers:

Fringe Flower (with different fringe colors)
Border Flower
Rolled Rose (single and double colored)
Stacked Flower (with different color layer)

Let's create!

Step 1: Materials and Tools

In this paper floral wreath project you are going to need:

1. Colored craft papers

2. Paper strips (you can use any widths of paper as you like, I use different paper widhts, from 0.25 cm to 2 cm)

3. 3D frame (deep box photo frame)

4. White glue (PVA glue)

5. X-acto knife or cutter

6. A pair of scissors (I prefer mini sized scissors)

7. Mini straw helps as a form tool in making ring coil. It can be subtituted by border buddy, pencil, or other cylindrical objects

8. Ruler

Optional tools:

Cutting mat (a base for cutting the paper with cutter or cutting pen)
Quilling Fringer Tool (if you do not have it, you can fringe the paper with scissors)
Slotted quilling tool (used to rol the paper strip to make coil, but if you do not have it, you can coil with your finger)

Step 2: The Fringe Flowers

The Tight Coil.

The first step to create fringe flowers is to make the tight coil. I used paper strip with a width of about 0.25 cm and length of 15 cm. Roll the strip into a tight coil using a slotted quilling tool. But since (unfortunately) I lost my slotted quilling tool, so I rolled the strip by hand. Then, apply a little glue at the end of the strip.

The Fringe

There are tools available for making fringes, called quilling fringers. If you are going to make a lot of fringed flowers for your projects, it will be best to buy a quilling fringer. The fringer tool will be able to make perfect fringes and it will save you a lot of time in fringing too. Since I do not have a fringer so I fringe the paper by hand with a pair of scissors. It is not a difficult task to fringe your own paper strips but the fringes will not be all even.

In this paper floral wreath project, I used some different color of paper strips in a flower. For example in the picture above I used Raspberry, Deep Gold and Red. For the first fringe, I use a strip of paper with a length of about 8-10 cm and width of 0.5 cm (you can customize it, as long as the strip wider than the tight coil). To make it a bit easier, fold your strip in half then fold it in half a second time. This will give you four layers to cut in a quarter of the time. Begin at one end and make as many small cuts as you need. Leave about an ¼ base uncut so you can easily quill it later.

Once you have cut the entire length, open the strip. You will see a few wider strips where the paper was folded. Cut those in half to match the rest of your fringe. The fringe can have narrower width or wider width. The narrower the fringe, the more delicate the flower will look.

Now apply a little glue at one end and stick it to the edge of tight coil. Roll the fringe and the tight coil, apply a little glue at the end of the strip to hold the shape of the coil. Wait for the glue to dry, then press the fringe down. The fringe can also be curled with a tool if required.

Repeat steps above for the next color of fringe, and don't forget that the next fringe strip should be wider than the previous one.

You can experiment with any colors, here I give you paper strips samples of my Asteraceae shown in the last picture of this step.

Step 3: The Border Flowers

The Ring Coil

To make the ring coil, you can use stacked quilling tool, border buddy, pencil, or another household cylindrical object as a form tool for making this border coil depend on the size of flower you want to make. In this paper floral wreath project I prefer using mini straw as the form because the size of the result is just perfect for me. I used a paper strip with a length of about 29.7 cm and width of 0.5 cm, then cut the paper strip into 4 strips. If you want to make bigger flower, than you can customize the length of the strip and diameter of the form.

Now, simply roll your strip around your form, adding a little glue to the beginning end to keep it still. Glue to secure the paper when you reach the end of the strip. The ring is complete. Remove gently from the form and press it horizontally and vertically until the ring turns into diamond shape.

The Filling

I cut 29.7 cm x 0.5 cm paper strip into 8 strips or simply the length of strip for the filling is a half of the strip for the ring coil. Roll the strip with your fingers. You do not need to glue the end of the filling strip because we need it to be flexible. Now, place the filling coil in the center of ring coil. Press it horizontally and vertically until the filling getting loose and fills perfectly in the ring coil.

You will need 5 ring coils and 5 filling coils for a flower.

Step 4: The Rolled Roses

Single Colored Rose

Cut a rough circle out of your craft paper. It doesn't need to be perfectly round.

Draw and cut a spiral shape starting from the edges of the circle. When drawing the spiral, I prefer to draw the spiral a bit dense, so the flower will look shorter (you can see in the comparison picture above). Leave a circle in the center (this is where you will affix the rolled rose).
Start rolling the cut spiral from the edge until you reach the center.

Release the swirl of rolled paper to reveal your rose, then apply glue to the center to secure the rose in place.

Double Colored Rose

The steps to make double colored rose is quite similar to the single colored one. You just need to make two circles in different color. Their size does'nt have to be exact the same. Then cut a spiral shape. When you're going to start rolling, place the edge of the spiral as you can see in the picture (sorry I just can't put it into words! > <). The next steps are pretty much as the single colored one.

Step 5: The Stacked Flower

You will need 4 pieces of craft paper of the same size. I used 3 X 3 cm craft papers in 2 different colors.

Take a piece of craft paper and fold the paper into half. Again fold the paper into even thirds (as shown in the picture). You can draw the pattern of the petal on the folded paper or you can simply cut the top of the folded paper into an arch shape. Similarly cut 3 more as you'll need 4 of these. This way you'll get 6 petals on each paper.

Use the small paint brush or any small round object (I used my scissors though) to create curves on the petals. Cut some petal(s) on each paper; 1 - 1 - 2 - 3 petals (see the picture). Apply glue on one side of the petaled papers and join it with the other side.

Now we have - 2 pieces with 5 petals, 1 with 4 petals, and 1 with 3 petals.

Start gluing the petaled papers, one on the top of the other one. Try to arrange them nicely to create a beautiful pattern. The ones with more petals should be on the bottom and the ones with fewer petals should be on the top. Allow the glue to dry.

Add a center piece by rumpling leftovers from your craft paper. Glue it, and Done!

Step 6: Additional Items

You can add the volume of your wreath by adding these items. They are no different from the flower you've made, they are tight coil, ring coil, border petal, also super mini rolled rose, so the steps are pretty much the same as the main flowers.

Step 7: Flowers Arrangement

The flowers are ready! YEAAY! Now you need to arrange it beautifully.

First thing first, you need prepare a white (or any color) for the base of the paper floral wreath. Match the paper size to the size of the frame base. Next, draw a fine circle on the paper with pencil. Make sure the circle size 3-4 cm from the frame border so the flowers will not overlap with the frame inner border. Sometimes I draw 2 circles, inner and outer, just to make sure I put my flowers on the right line that they won't overlap with the frame inner border.

If you want to make something like hand lettering, portrait print, etc, I suggest you to add them before arranging the flowers.

When it comes to flower arrangement, I prefer to put flowers with bigger size first. Apply a little glue in the bottom of each flowers only after you are sure that you are good with your arrangement. Then frame it!

Now you can give that beautiful handmade paper floral wreath to your beloved ones :D

Quinzy Varira | Instagram | TikTok