Poppies

 Recently I came across a company that carried this wonderful crepe paper. Nothing like I have ever seen before. They also had some free patterns one of which was for making Sweet Pea flowers. I ordered a couple of colors and my sister also gave me some of her paper. So between the two types of papers, I fashioned the flowers. I was fascinated with the process and how beautiful these flowers were. My first attempts were by far not perfect. I needed to develop technique. I used to make paper flowers when I was a hippie back in the 70's, but nothing like this. They were the typical huge things that were perhaps 12 inches wide in crazy colors and I would give them out to people downtown proclaiming "Peace and Love to Everyone". Flower child.

Amazingly, I have not been able to find any books on the making of flowers. I am sure they are out there, but they are hidden from me. So here I am making my own patterns and trying to figure out my own techniques.

 I

1. I found that if I type in a flower on Google there is usually a link to images and it is a good reference to quite a few great views to what I am looking for. This is how I figured out how to make the poppy. I also never realized how many colors this flower comes in. 

  

This is my first attempt. The one in the middle was the first. You can see that the center of it is way too big. I also used glue to hold it in place. It is rather fragile. The petals however are a good size. The front one is much better when it comes to the center. I really have to find tendrills however to make this flower look more realistic. And I didn't have any brown paper so I used a green and will have to paint them brown in the end.

Making the  template for the petals was not as difficult as I had thought. I suppose it is because I have seen so many of these flowers in my life that guessing was easy. I will however, make a size a bit bigger also. but not much bigger.  And I want to also make the seed pod but that will take some work as color is important and it has that flat cap to it. And I can't find a good image for the leaf.



 

 Try as I might, I could not get a good picture of the design of the petal. . This is how the petal begins. I cut it out and delicately pull out the very top edge with my thumbnails. You can see the ridges. Then I put a slight bowl into the paper just below that. I make five of these.

 This is the end flower  with the painted centers now smaller. I found, after the second one, that using glue to fasten the center to the wire is not the correct way of doing it. If I just use the floral tape it is perfect and solid and much less messy. I made the last one is a very pale pink. They come in several pinks and yellows, oranges, and some are even variegated. And some petals are shaped differently.

Interesting, isn't it?