Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Wedding Planning Wednesday - Crepe paper rosette tutorial!


I'm so excited to finally share this DIY pomander tutorial with you all! I just love how it came out and I'm happy to show you all how I did it! I really, really wanted to do something fun and different for our flower girl because I'm not crazy about the whole basket thing. I was toying with the idea of a paper cone or a handmade pomander of some kind when I stumbled upon this tutorial on Pinterest for crepe paper rosettes. She used them to make a centerpiece (which is a lovely idea, by the way) but I decided to turn it into a handmade flower girl pomander! (The original idea came from Danielle Flanders and you can see a helpful video tutorial here.) These are pretty easy to make once you get the hang of it and you can use them to make a pomander like me, centerpieces, or even hang them from the ceiling at your next get-together! I am already planning to make more for a bridal shower and I think they'd be lovely in different pastel colors for spring!

Materials needed:

1 4-inch Styrofoam ball
2 80 foot rolls of crepe paper in your choice of color
Piece of wide, satin ribbon for the handle
Low temp hot glue gun + several sticks of glue
Glue stick
2 pushpins (optional)

The first thing you want to do is cut both rolls of crepe paper into strips at your desired length. You can play around with different lengths to see what you like best, but the longer the strip is the bigger the rosette will be. For the size rosettes shown, I did 24 inch strips. Once they are all cut, take the first one and crumple it up into a ball and then carefully un-crumple it. This gives it that 'shabby-chic' look. Then, fold the crumpled strip in half, length-wise. This is another thing you can play around with to see what you like better. You can leave them as-is, fold 1/3 of the way down, or fold them in half like I did. The wider the strip, the taller the rosette. I wanted these to lay pretty flat on the Styrofoam balls, but if you want more dimension you can leave the strips wider. 

When they are folded in half, start rolling them until you get a nice center piece. Once you have the center, keep rolling (not very tightly) and then start twisting the tissue paper every now and then to get the look of petals. If you are confused by this part (like I was) go watch the video tutorial to get a better look at how she twists them. The more twists you have the more textured the rose so just play with it until it looks right to you!


Keep rolling and twisting around using the whole strip until you end up with good sized rosette. Then, using the glue stick, dab some glue on the end and gently press together.


Repeat until you have used all of your strips and you should have a great big pile of rosettes. It will look like way too many, but trust me, it isn't!


Now it's time to glue! Cut a piece of wide satin ribbon to your desired length. This will act as the handle of your pomander (if making centerpieces, you can skip this step!). Then, using the hot glue gun, glue down each side of the ribbon to the Styrofoam ball. Be careful not to burn yourself pressing down! If you have 2 pushpins, pin the ribbon down over the glue for extra security. Once the flowers are on you won't be able to see the pins. 

Now start attaching the rosettes! This is where you use A LOT of glue... put a big glob on the ball, stick the rosette on, and press down gently to secure. Be careful not to put the tip of the glue gun directly onto the Styrofoam for long because it will melt! Continue gluing the rosettes until the whole thing is covered. Start with any larger or wider flowers and save the smaller ones to fill in at the end.  


When you're done, you should end up with something like this! Be sure to let it dry for a few hours before letting anyone play with it because it is delicate! There are so many different ways to decorate with these and customize them with any color... I am obsessed! Rosette balls for everyone! You can also use the rosettes to decorate other things like picture frames or scrapbook pages. The possibilities are endless!


My sister just finished making the flower girl dress so I got to see our adorable little flowers girl all dressed up holding this sweet pomander! I. Almost. Died. She looked like such a little fairy princess and everything is exactly what I pictured in my head! My sister is talented, people! I'm signing her up for the next season of Project Runway! 

I hope you all enjoy your Wednesday! Less than 2 months left until the big day and it's so surreal! Ahhh! XOXO

2 comments:

  1. That's adorable!! Great job! You lost me and my time patience at rolling them! Clearly not a crafty person here. Such a great idea!!!

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  2. Super cute! Thanks for sharing.

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