Google+ House Revivals: How to Make a Giant Wallflower

Thursday, April 30, 2015

How to Make a Giant Wallflower

I was recently inspired to make a giant flower for my wall when I saw one that Joanna Gaines used over a mantel in one of her installations.


Of course, this was at ten o'clock at night, after a home improvement TV marathon. No stores were open, so I needed to get creative with supplies!
I had a big stack of vintage lined strips of poster board -- the kind teachers use to make large handwriting samples. They were just about the right thickness and width to make petals, so I grabbed some scissors and glue and jumped right into the project!



For a gluing base, I glued some strips together to make a rigid larger piece (two layers thick), then used a large plate to trace a circle to cut out. Inside the circle, I centered and traced a smaller plate to create a gluing guide.


For the first layer of petals, I cut the strips in half, and cut the pieces into petal shapes and glued them down, then continued to add more layers of petals. Every so often, I cut the strips a little shorter. For the center, I cut "fringe" into several strips, then wadded them up and wrinkled the fringe until I was happy with the texture. The center was then wound into a spiral and attached with glue.


To give each petal dimension, I curled the edges inward with my hands, simply coaxing them into a shape I liked.


The resulting giant wallflower looked terrific in my entryway, and it only cost pennies for the glue!

For another paper wallflower tutorial, using vintage book pages, click here.


If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to House Revivals, so you won't miss any of the the other fun projects we have planned. Feel free to share links to this post on your favorite social media sites -- you can even use the handy icons below this post!

Thanks so much for stopping by!