Making paper roses

/ Meg

photo(1)


I’m not very interesting these days.

I’ll be perfectly honest with you: I’m having a hard time coming up with a post topic that isn’t, you know, wedding-related.

Not because I’m an insufferable bridezilla (I’m not — I don’t think). But because, at a month out, I’m not doing much that doesn’t involve moving, ordering wedding things, planning wedding things or generally gathering information for said wedding. The rest of the time I’m working, and that ain’t all that interesting.

I’m in the zone. The wedding zone.

I also feel like my mind is a sieve; I can barely retain any new information because it’s too full of stuff. I live in a constant state of worry that I’m forgetting something, a sensation I know will only intensify in the weeks to come. Even my devotion to lists isn’t helping me now. I need lists to keep track of the lists . . . and I spend a lot of time on Google Drive.

What I have been doing? Making paper roses! Still wedding-related, but let’s roll with it. Thanks to the creativity of my friend Sandy, we’ve been working on those little babies above as part of our literature/science-themed wedding decor. I was perfectly willing to plunk down cash for paper flowers on Etsy, otherwise known as my personal crack, but Sandy was convinced we could make them ourselves.

My sickly wallet thanks me . . . because we totally did. On Friday, we made a girls’ night of folding, cutting and curling vintage book pages into almost 60 roses to place atop our book centerpieces — and they’re fantastic! We followed this tutorial from Capitol Romance, and I was really shocked at how quickly they came together. And how professional they look.

The guide explains the process better than I could ever hope to, but the rough-and-dirty version involves cutting 4″ by 4″ squares from a book page, folding it three times (into a triangle), cutting them into rounded petals, removing a certain number of petals from each, hot gluing them into floral shapes, gluing those together, then curling the edges to give your bud that signature rose look.

But yeah, just check out the tutorial.

And beware the paper cuts.


16 thoughts on “Making paper roses”

  5. awwwww they look so stunning! I’d have totally copied those from you, were it not that my father in law has been a librarian, and my fiancé is brought up with the notion that ‘thou shall not make alterations in any book whatsoever, no matter the purpose’ 😉

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    • Hehe, totally understandable! I should note that though books were harmed in the making of this project, they were water-stained and vintage varieties. I felt bad about cutting them — but I started to breathe easier when I realized how cute the roses are. These books did not perish in vain!

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  7. I hear ya. It’s hard to think about much else that close. Don’t you worry about us. You just concentrate on keeping calm and cool. 🙂

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  10. The roses are gorgeous!! Also, you’re forgiven for having wedding brain — it’s pretty hard to shake and frankly, it’ll be (hopefully), the only one you ever have — bask in it! I definitely didn’t wallow enough, I think, in wedding-ness, and it was so amazing, it felt like it breezed past me.

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