Crepe Paper Cherry Blossom

You will surely have stumbled upon pictures of cherry trees raining their delicate petals over by passers. With this Tutorial you can display the delicate blooms in your home all year round!

 

You will need:

  • Crepe paper in white or light pink (or any other colour you want if you don’t want to go natural) and light green
  • tissue paper in yellow
  • florist tape in white and brown 
  • thin wire
  • glue (I used UHU; the one that drops less. Make sure you don’t take a water based glue as it may dissolve the colour of the crepe paper)
  • Twig (optional)

 

Tools I used: 

  • Scissors
  • wire cutter
  • zig Zag scissors (optional)

You will also need this pattern. If you want to go for the same size I did orientate the picture using the ruler on the side, but you can also size them up or down according to your preference.

Cherry blossoms have 5 flower petals. For these you can cut a strip of crepe paper, fold it, and cut them out using your pattern. Be careful of the direction of the paper, as in the next step you will use that to give the bloom more life and dimension. So cut it with the lines on the paper vertically to the pattern. 

Once cut out you will “cup them” which means making the most of the stretch the crepe paper can offer. Hold the petal on the outer edges and gently pull, stretching it into a curved shape. This step might take a bit of practice. But as we’re working with organic shapes here don’t worry too much. Irregularities make the flower look more lifelike. 

Afterwards grab the lower, straight part of the petal and twist it to a strand. 

To make the inner part of the flower called the stamen cut a small rectangle from your yellow tissue paper. Then make very narrow cuts two thirds down. Cut the whole rectangle like this so it looks like a comb. If you plan to make multiple flowers you can cut a couple of rectangles together.

To close the flower off, cut a 1-2cm wide strip of light green crepe paper and then cut it into small rectangles using your zig zag Scissors. If you don’t have them, fold the strip along narrowly in width and cut the tip to a point. When you unfold the strip you should end up with a similar result.

Before you can assemble everything, you need to prepare the wire. Cut a piece as long as you need. Mine tend to be 10-12cm long which is fine for sticking it into a piece of floral foam, but this might vary for you depending on how you want to display your flowers. Once you cut your wire, cut a piece of white floral tape, and fold the tip of it over and wrap it around until the upper part of the wire is covered. This will give you a base to glue all your parts onto.

So now it’s time for the fun part where it all comes together! Start off by applying glue to the bottom part of your stamen. Wrap this part around the very tip of your wire. 

Then apply glue to the twisted part of your petals and glue them to the tip of your wire as well, overlapping them slightly. 

Looking down it should look like a pinwheel. This part tends to be fiddly, so take your time with it. Once this is set, glue the light green crepe paper around it, wrapping it tight. 

If you want to add your blooms to a twig, take a dried twig that ideally looks a little knarly and has a few bends and knots. Position the flower somewhere that looks natural and then wrap the wire around the twig. 

Then take a piece of brown floral tape and wrap it around both the wire and the bottom of your flower to both blend it in and hide the wire. You might need to cut the tape horizontally. Once you’re happy with the result, glue the end of the tape to your twig. If you add a bunch of blooms, work from the top down in order to not damage what you already made.
Lastly, shape the flower. This will be what makes it look lifelike. Gently tug on the petals and leaves to change their position and bend the wire to make it look less static.

It has to be said on this point that there is a very good likelihood, that the colour of the tape will show up against the colour of your twig. If this is something that bothers you, you can either wrap the whole twig in tape, adding flowers as you go or paint the twig in the end. My personal solution was to just put them in front of a very bright window 😊

You’re done, congratulations! You can now display your beautiful little cherry blossom twig any way you like! You don’t have to stick to a natural look either; since these won’t need water (and rather shouldn’t be exposed to it) you have every creative freedom with placing them!

I would love to see what you come up with! If you share pictures of your creations, please tag @thetinkery so I can see what you made!