Paper Poppies Are Something Special
Have you ever grown real poppies? I went through a phase. There is something about poppies, they are just so pretty and come in so many different variations. However, there is one downside.
When you grow real poppies, they seem to flower for like one day and then the petals fall off. Insert sad face here!
So let's make some pretty paper poppies so we can keep them for a while or hand them over as the perfect present.
We are going to use crepe paper for the petals. Crepe paper is perfect as it has a lovely texture and can be, sort of stretched and will hold its stretch. So you can almost create a dome in your crepe paper. Perfect for a petal shape.
I remember making endless crepe paper flowers when I was child with my grandmother, but that's another story.
Stuff We Might Need for the Paper Poppies
- Basic paper craft tools
- Crepe paper in red and black, a pack each
- Floristry wire, 18 gauge, 5 x 25cms long or 10 inches long
- Green paper floristry tape
- Sponge
- Circle punch, 1.5cm or 5 eighths inch
- Silver 3d paint
- Black tissue paper, one pack
How To Make A Paper Poppy
Step One
Find a clean sponge and cut it into 1cm cubes or 3 eighths inch cubes. We need five of these.
- Put the sponge cube on the end of the wire and bend the wire over to hold the sponge in place
- Punch a circle of card 1.5cms or 5 eighths of an inch in diameter
- Glue the card circle to the top of the sponge on the wire
- Repeat this four times, we need five in total for our paper poppies
Make The Paper Poppy Details
Step Two
Make a circle of black crepe paper 8cms diameter or 3 and one eighths diameter. Cover the sponge head with the circle of black crepe paper.
Use green floristry tape to fasten the black crepe paper. The tape is sticky so it will stick to itself. Take some time to make it look neat and tidy.
Again, we are making five paper poppies, so repeat this process another four times.
Continue Making The Tissue Paper Poppies
Step Three
Now we can add some details to the poppy heads. Using the 3d silver paint. Draw a crossed star shape on the end of each poppy head. Use the circle of card underneath to help you find the edges.
Leave the glue to dry or you will have a huge mess on your hands. If you can't find the silver paint, you can use a silver pen marker.
More Tissue Paper Poppy Details
Step Four
Now we are going to make the frilly centre of the paper poppies. Cut some black tissue paper 10 x 20cms or 4 x 7 and three quarter inches.
Fold the black tissue paper in half along its length. Now we are going to cut where we folded. Use a larger pair of scissors and don't cut where the two edges meet, but rather where the centre fold is.
Cut across the fold into the paper approximately 2cms or three quarters of an inch. And move along. Cut the fringes every 2mm or 1 sixteenth on an inch.
It doesn't have to be too precise, just make it look neat and uniform.
Again, we have five paper poppies, so we need five poppy fringe pieces.
Start Assembling Your Paper Poppies
Step Five
Now we wrap our new fringe pieces around the heads of each paper poppy. Make sure your fringes are facing up obviously, or otherwise the last step was all a waste of time :)
Wrap with green sticky floristry tape, tightly around the bottom of the fringe pieces to stick and secure it all together.
Homemade Poppy Petal Template
Here is the final stage of the paper poppies. Now we just need the petals. Each poppy has seven red crepe paper petals. Use the template above as a guide to make your red crepe paper poppy petals.
To speed up the process, layer the red crepe paper and cut through multiple layers to make multiple petal shapes at once.
Assembling The Crepe Paper Poppy Petals
Step Six
Place three petals around each poppy head and tape in place. Then position another four petals evenly around the flower head and secure them neatly with more tape.
Pretty Paper Poppies Conclusion
Such a fun project with a wonderful payoff. Who even needs something to celebrate to make these? Just make them today.
Poppies are such pretty flowers. But the real flowers are very fleeting. So here we can capture the magic, very realistically and enjoy them for as long as we want.
