This is a closeup of one of my pink paper peonies :)
The buds, petal shapes as well as the leaves are different from the paper roses in one of my previous posts.
Here you can see the leaf shape is like a trident...I followed the exact same process as for previous paper leaves.
1. Drew the leaf and printed off a bunch
2. Cut them all out
3. Scored each leaf to create veins
4. Painted them all with acrylic paints
5. Sealed with acrylic gloss varathane (both sides)
6. Attached each leaf to a pipe cleaner
7. Taped each stem
Here are the leaves in various stages
Here you can see that I have dyed my coffee filters pink,
hung them to dry and then ironed them.
NOTE: I also tea stained some as well as left some white
OK, so now I must create the peony buds
The only photos I have of this process are from a different flower...however, it is exactly the same except the peony buds are yellow.
Take a small rectangular piece of paper and make a MILLION little cuts half way through the width of the paper
See below
Roll the whole piece of paper really tight and wrap floral wire around the bottom as you see below
Here is a finished peony bud
Now for the petals
There are three different shapes
here I show them cut out and a bunch that have been prepared
Notice that each petal is doubled before the tip is twisted...this adds to the fullness
and creates a more realistic petal
As this bowl of petals filled up I couldn't help but think that these would be great to use as decorations for banquet tables or aisle runners at a small wedding
It would take a bit of time, but it's a great solution for a small budget :)
Below you can see the various sizes of the petals compared to the bud
Here is one peony complete
The following images are of all the peonies I made:
pink, cream and white
without leaves and with leaves
I have to say, I actually preferred them without the leaves...they look so much softer.
However, the greenery does make the colours seem much more vibrant.
The only thing missing is a bunch of baby's breath to finish the look...
I wish I had done that.
I mixed the peonies with roses to create bouquets with variety which I will show in a future post :)
Until next time
Be Creative :)
