What’s Pretty Frugal and Yesterday’s News? Newsprint Paper Flowers!
Try to make newsprint paper flowers; you’ll see it’s a handy craft. You can make blooms in a variety of styles and sizes using inexpensive materials. Methods vary, but if you’ve made tissue paper flowers for children, you can use the idea and get bunches of eye-catching blooms. Besides, it’s fun and sometimes newsprint paper is free.
Newsprint Paper Flowers are So Simple – Even Children Can Make Them
I used the accordion folding method mentioned in a bulk of my experiments. Pipe cleaners were practical when I needed to make bundles of large flowers, and secure the centres of the folds. The diameter of each large bloom was 24 to 26 inches wide; the smaller ones varied. In addition, the simplicity of the technique allowed for pleasing outcomes; each new flower delivered better results. More, I made them in less time. Below you’ll find step-by-step instructions for making a few.
Consider your designs and whether they’ll demand materials to bend without breaking or stiffness to keep the shape. Often, you’ll need both.
How Do You Make Newspaper Flowers?
You can make newspaper flowers several ways and get welcome results, depending on your goals. Newsprint doesn’t stretch, nor is it strong, leaving you to create the features you want in your blooms. Consider your designs and whether they’ll demand materials to bend without breaking or stiffness to keep the shape. Often, you’ll need both, and creativity will supply the means to achieve them.
I made many flowers on this page for event decor; others are samples, but either can work for home. Besides arrangements and centrepieces, you can design other paper crafts for home decorating. That’s another story. Still, I urge you to learn the characteristics of your paper. The knowledge you gain will equip you to meet your imagination.
Making Large Size Paper Flowers with Newsprint
For example, one of the first things I did in my newspaper flower experiments was to make mega-size flowers using the form I did with giant tissue blooms. The instructions outlined below are typical, but the results weren’t equal because of the textural contrasts. Further, using the same material, you can make paper leaves with a simple twist.
Materials You Will Need
- Newsprint
- Scissors
- Cotton swabs
- Skewers
- Wire stems
- Floral tape
- String or yarn to tie them -if hanging
- Pliers if working with rolls of wire
- Glue stick, white glue, glue gun Pencil
- You won’t need all of the above supplies in every instance.
Instructions
As promised, here are the steps to making lovely bunches of newsprint paper flowers.
- First, cut and stack the paper.
- Next, make accordion folds.
- Following that, shape the ends of the folds with scissors to create petal shapes.
- Add a stem in the middle with wire or pipe cleaner. Pieces of string can work for hanging them too.
- Although newsprint is thicker than tissue, it’s easy to rip. For that reason, open the folds and separate the layers upward, using the level of caution linked to craft tissue paper blooms.
Aside from the newspaper, the materials below will help you create clusters of delightful flowers.
Continued Learning
I delved into using the small tissue paper flowers method, but tissue is softer, and the folds form differently. As a result, I made adjustments for texture and paper thickness, and to achieve pleasing outcomes, I increased the sizes of the “small” flowers. Besides, I stuck to using pipe cleaners to tie paper folds because they worked well for what I needed.
Getting More From the Basics
Your newsprint paper floristry doesn’t have to stop there. If you plan on hanging blooms, newspapers are a fitting substitute, making the smaller blossoms the same as no-wire tissue paper flowers. Tie them with string or use pipe cleaners at the centres during construction. It works with adjustments for thickness and petals or layer count. Learning to make and test your floral designs can be fun to explore.
The Lessons
Newspaper can deliver similar blooms to tissue paper flowers for wall hangings or other designs. Despite that, the variance in textures doesn’t promise the same results. It’s rewarding to use newsprint as a substitute for familiar materials to make flowers, because every bloom you make will inform you. For example, when I made the first three flowers, I used newsprint that wrapped breakable items I bought at the dollar store. It’s the start of a story I explored, and I loved the results and the promise crafts with newsprint paper offered.
beautiful centres for your newsprint flowers. Colour them any way
you want, applying pigment with a dropper or brush.
Use Sizes, Scale and Texture to Create Variety
Featured pictures are for inspiration to help you create a variety of newsprint flowers. Images are visual suggestions on how to use the blooms in creative ways. Of dimensions, the size you want is always the best. Newsprint rips easily and has a grain. To find it, tear the paper lengthwise and crossways; where it pulls apart, straighter is the vertical orientation. Besides, it will lie flatter when folded or gathered in that direction.
Creating and Shaping Paper
After learning newspapers’ features as a crafting material, practice manipulating it. Pay attention to edges, and you’ll see gathering newsprint in single layers often produces small tears at the outer borders. Petals with tight gathers or folds at the bases are less likely to break, and in chief, tears occur when the creases form against the paper grain and edges have no flex.
Curve petal edges with a pencil or a similar object, and with giant-size flowers, a wooden dowel works.
Design Details and Variety
Cut petals in varied sizes, alternate layers with an array of papers, or use tissue, printed, and unprinted newspaper, and you can add a vintage flair with tea or coffee.
Ways to use Newsprint Paper Flowers
- Make a bouquet or many.
- Try designing single blooms and putting them in a vase, and if that doesn’t interest you, make flowers to use as gift toppers.
- Embellish scrap books or journals, but you’ll need to make them flat.
Similarly, you can design a mobile to hang from the ceiling.
I hope this article inspired you. Now’s your time to reach for the newspaper and the supplies you will need, and come up with some fabulous designs. Too, remember, it doesn’t have to be complicated.
As mentioned earlier, I created most of the flowers using the accordion folding method. There, you have it; it’s your turn to make a bunch of easy paper flowers whenever you wish.
If you need a large quantity of newsprint at a reasonable cost, I got a fabulous deal here.
As always, thank you for sharing your day with me.
Until the next time, you drop in, God speed.