Petal Pairs Basket Bouquet Tutorial

A basketful of stemmed Petal Pairs: 100% papercrafted!

Craft a batch - or just a  bunch - of long-stemmed Petal Pairs.

I wanted to create a Petal Pairs bouquet for you - to give you the option of making a 3-D project beyond a card embellishment. So
I took out my floristry craft kit - you know - stretchy green tape, wires,
wire-cutters. Lots of hardware! And I had a mini-epiphany: papercrafters love to papercraft. So... I put the wires and wire-cutters away and worked out an easy (and fun) method to make Petal Pairs flowers entirely of paper. The flowers are light, the stems are flexible. You can use them on cards or as giftwrap adornments.

Here's how-to - yes - lots of steps, but really very simple:

1) Cut narrow strips of green paper with a paper trimmer - about 5mm(1/4in) wide. Each strip is the length of an A4 piece of paper. (I used Inspire Me Premium paper.) Fold each strip of paper in half. At the midpoint, glue on a strip of 3mm (1/8in) quilling paper.

 2) Wrap the quilling strip around the green strip 12 times. Trim away the extra quilling strip and glue the end down with tacky glue.

3) Apply tacky glue along the inside of one half of the green stem strip.
Fold the stem in half, aligning edges. You now have a stem with a paper bead "stop" at the top.

4) These are the Tonic Studios Petal Pairs you need for this project - 
the punch on the left is from Petal Pairs Box Set 3 (882e), the middle punch is from Petal Pairs Box Set 4 (883e), and the punch on the right is from Petal Pairs Box Set 5 (884e). (Box Sets 4 and 5 are brand new!) The photo shows you the quantity and colour of shapes to punch out. (I used Inspire Me Premium paper.)

5) To make each flower: pink and purple shapes are treated as one and interlocked with a purple flower shape in the usual way to make a Petal Pair.

6) A red circle is glued onto the centre of the flower to make it pop. You can cut the red circle from a punched Petal Pairs shape - cut off the petals to obtain the circle. (Alternatively, you can cut out an 8mm circle using a digital cutting machine or you can buy self-adhesive signal dots from a stationery store.)

 7) Take an embossing stylus and score centre lines on each petal of the green Petal Pair with heart-shaped petals. 

8) Glue the scored green Petal Pair shape onto the back of the interlocked Petal Pair flower. The Petal Pair shape now has 4 layers.

9) Punch a hole through the centre of the 4-layered Petal Pair. Use a 1/8in (3mm) circle handpunch. (Alternatively, carefully cut a small slit through all layers with a craft knife.)

10) Pinch the bottom of the stem and insert it through the centre hole in the Petal Pair flower.

11) Slide the flower up the stem until it reaches the top.

12) The flower now looks like this. Almost finished - you just need to dimension it and add the leaves.

13) Lift each pink petal and gently shape it. Next, fluff up the two purple layers beneath.

14) Pinch the green leaves and pull them downwards.

15) All you need is leaves.

16) ... but first trim the stem to the desired length. (Looks smart cut on the diagonal.)

17) Cut two leaves like so. Score a centre leaf vein with the embossing tool.

18) Pinch each leaf in half and fold it crosswise. Glue the tail onto the stem. The flower is finished! (You may have noticed, there is also an alternative yellow colourway to add variety for your arrangement.) 

This flower-making method can be used for all the Petal Pair shapes.

We're not done yet. Thought I'd give you a bonus: a basket for your flowers. Here's the pattern template:

To make the basket:

1) Cut out the basket base, handle, and two squares. Punch holes as shown with circle handpunch. Score the fold lines with an embossing tool held against a metal ruler. Crease the folds. Glue the square inside the basket base - their purpose is to weight the basket so it doesn't tip over when filled with flowers. You need robust cardstock for the basket.
I used Bazzill Basic.

2) Tie a ribbon bow to join adjacent basket sides. Use a tapestry needle to thread the ribbon. For each bow, you need 25cm (10in) of ribbon. For the basket waist bow, you need 35cm(14in) of ribbon.

3) Attach the basket handle to the basket base with brads. All done!

You can make the basket up in different sizes. For smaller baskets, you will, of course, need to trim the stems. And of course, it will require fewer flowers to fill a smaller basket. It takes about three dozen flowers to fill the original basket size (base of 4cm - 1-1/2in). (I know -
you'll be surprised how quickly it goes. Do it production line-style.)

So, that's it: your basic all-occasion Petal Pairs stemmed flowers and basket. Happy crafting! : )