DIY Giant Whimsical Paper Flowers

I am not sure if I mentioned this in my previous blogs, but I am maid of honor in 2 weddings this spring and I have truly enjoyed being able to put my crafty side to work creating again.  Not that I don't enjoy bed springs and recycling, but sometimes you just need to do something different.

I originally found this tutorial on Pinterest, the pin was from the Design Sponge website but the flowers were created by Ruche.  Which if you are in love with all things vintage and have never been to Ruche, check it out they have beautiful clothes and decorative items. It is one of my favs!

Anyways so I followed the tutorial, but have a few notes on how I altered it for my creations.

1.  When you are filling your cups with the cement make sure you have at least 3/4 of a cup, this will make them strong enough to hold up taller flowers.  My current ones are about 1/2 a cup and definitely won't hold flowers any taller than the ones I'm showing (about 4' tall).   I had to have a quick lesson from the BF in how to use quickcrete and strongly suggest before putting any cement powder in your cups add a tiny bit of water to the bottom, it definitely helps in the mixing process.

2.  Instead of using stucco corner, I used chicken wire, which we had out in the barn (so I guess this is an element of recycling)  It worked great and I didn't have to wire it closed I just bent it to the stem shape and taped it with masking tape.

3.  Lastly, my flower tops are different b/c I attempt to make one like theirs and failed!  Well not completely, but I didn't like the end result.   It is very difficult to tape the flowers together b/c tape and tissue paper do not work well together.  If it sticks, it rips!  So I decided to use five sheets of tissue paper and create blossoms like I used in my phone book flowers.  So much easier and created giant blooms!  I also made the wire "stem" of my flower long enough that I just stick it in the large chicken wire stem and cover it, no zip ties needed.

4.  For my centers, I took a darker purple tissue paper and cut it up with my fringe scissors, sprayed the centers with spray glue and dropped it on!  Spray glue may also be a good option for glueing the green tissue paper to the masking tape, as using plain white glue is very time consuming.

The finished result:

They remind me of the giant singing flowers from Alice in Wonderland, while the BF says the remind him of the flowers that come up through the pipes on Super Mario.  Either way excellent bridal shower, wedding or even to decorate your little girl's room!

Enjoy!