{Weddings/Parties} DIY Centerpiece: Recycled Paper Flowers

Hello spring !  Everywhere you look there are flowers sprouting up outside and in magazines. Now is the time to collect and clip all those beautiful flowers that are popping up everywhere!  What better and fun way to recycle your magazines than clipping some colorful flowers to use in a project?

This project is addictive. I sat watching TV one night going through all my magazine stacks, clipping away, and then folding my small squares into paper flowers, I ended up with a pile of flowers in my lap,  in all different colors!

Fun and so happy to have made use of all my magazines for a second time!

HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• Magazines with flower & leaf pictures
• White or tracing, paper- 2″ x 2″ and 3″ x 3″ square
• Fruit branches
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Glue
• Optional: Green ribbon, 1/4″ x  12″ for napkin.

HERE’S WHERE TO GET IT

Flower & garden, and home magazines. Your garden, nursery or craft store that has a floral section, for branches.

HERE’S HOW TO MAKE IT

1. Make square templates using the plain white or tracing paper to 2″ x 2″ and 3″ x 3″ squares. I like using the tracing paper because you can see through it when placing it over the flowers before you trace around the square.
2. Go through your magazines tearing out the pages that have flowers the size of the paper squares. You will be making a front and a back, so you will need 2 pieces for each flower and leaf. They don’t need to be the same flower, just close to the same color for the bottom piece. I have even used background color from an add.
3. Trace around template and cut out the flower squares. Glue a front and back together. Let dry.
4. Fold the square in half, then in half again. Open the square and crease diagonally, then repeat to make another diagonal crease, in the other direction.
5. Refold back into the small square and fold one more time to make a triangle. Hold onto the folded closed point of the paper, and start cutting at the bottom towards folded edge into a heart shape.
6. Open paper flowers and glue the smaller flower into the larger one.
7. Trace the leaves from green magazine pages using the 2″ x 2″ square template.
8. Fold the square in half and then in half again. Holding the folded edge, cut out a leaf shape. Unfold and glue together. Let dry.
9. Glue flowers and leaves to branches.
10. Optional: Glue 1 set of flowers to ribbon, that will be long enough to wrap around your napkin. Let dry.

Tip: Making bigger and smaller square templates will give you different sizes of flowers. This looks great if you want to make a bouquet of flowers, glued onto branches and put into a vase. You can also glue the small single flowers onto the branches to mix it up.

By: YLE Crafty Chic- Sharon Tittle