Tutorial - How to make paper roses

As promised I have made a tutorial to show you how I make my paper roses. I ended up photographing it myself as I went along which got a little fiddly but I think it has turned out OK.

To start you need ordinary paper that is the same colour all the way through (like the rough coloured paper you get in children's colouring pads - I hope you know the kind I mean as I do not know it's correct term in the paper world LOL!) It doesn't need to be very big, I think mine was about 15cm x 10cm for this tutorial.

TIP!!! (This next bit depends on the type of paper as I have just discovered some gorgeous hand made paper that is so soft and pliable that I do not need to crumple my paper up so if you have ordinary paper crumple it as below, if you can get some really soft handmade style paper you won't need to crumple it!)

You then need to scrunch the paper lots of times. Really crumple it, screw it up, roll it, over and over again. When it is ready to use it should feel almost like a piece of fabric, very soft.

Next, so that you don't have to cut each petal individually fold it into a squashed roll over and over so that you have six or seven layers (my beginning fold was about 3cm in from the short edge) - like you do when making paper chain dolls.

At one end of your folded paper, cutting through all the layers cut out a rose petal shape (similar to a heart but with the point cut off as shown below)

Repeat at the other end of your folded pad of paper but cut a slightly smaller petal shape.

Distress the top edges of the petals (the widest end) with distress ink or q chalk ON BOTH SIDES as both sides can end up being visible when the flower is finished.

With your craft knife make a small cross shape in each petal about 5mm from the bottom of the thin end. You need a minimum of 6 of each size petal to make the rose but you can use more petals if you wanted one of the big blown roses.

Take three of the small petals and push a brad through the crosses you made. It doesn't matter what colour brad as you will not be able to see it when you've finished. Arrange as in the picture above.

Make another layer underneath the first three with the remaining small petals making sure that you can see the petals in the gaps of the first layer.

Add three large petals, again making sure the petals are visible in the gaps of the previous layer, and then repeat again with the final three large petals so that it looks like the picture above. Do not close the brad as you need to hold it while you form the petals.

Next you need to roll the top petal (ie the first petal that was put on the brad) into a cone shape so that it looks like the centre of a rose as shown above. Pinch it firmly around the bulb part of the brad and it should then stay in its curled up position.

Take the next petal down and curl it around the first, again pinching it around the bulb part of the brad.

Take the third petal down and curl that around the other two and you should now have the centre of a rose as shown above.

Continue in the same manner with the next three petals, always using the next petal down and making sure the middle of that petal covers a gap between petals. Make sure you keep pinching the petals around the bulb of the brad so that the rose keeps its shape. When curling the six larger petals around you also need to curl the top over your finger so it curls back on itself like the outside petals of a rose do in real life.

Keep on in the same manner until all twelve petals have been shaped and curled. You can then fold the ends of your brad over to secure it all and you should now have a rose! You can either leave the rose as it is or I like to make them shimmery by rubbing Luster Rub on in white onto them. Above you can see my finished rose ready to attach to a project. Below you can see the roses attached to some of my projects.

I hope you manage to make one from this tutorial, looking at how long it is it probably seems really complicated but I promise you it isn't. Once you form the first three into the middle of the rose it all flows from there! If you do manage to make one I'd love it if you'd let me know that the tutorial was actually easy to understand!