How To Make A Simple Crepe Paper Peonie

With the Jewish holiday of Shavuot coming up on Thursday night, NOW is the time to get crafting, and learning how to make a simple crepe paper peonie craft is a great place to start! You will need stiff crepe paper, the kind made speficially for crafting flowers, but you needn’t splurge on the the high quality paper when just getting the hang of the craft, or in my case crafting with 11 and 12 year old boys! The art of crepe paper flower is a vast one, and might have your head spinning a bit, but sitting down to make one crepe paper peonie for starters is certainly do-able, and with simple supplies there is less pressure. Lets do it!

Crepe Paper Peonie Supplies:

• stiff floral crepe paper, low quality from China is fine for beginners, if you want really gorgeous flowers, opt for the expensive paper from Italy!

• wire floral stems, or skewers

• hot glue, a grey marker, white paper, tracing paper (possibly) and scissors

Crepe Paper Peonies Instructions:

For this flower you will need 12-15 large petals, 9 medium petals, and 4 leav shaped petals. You will need a strip of fringe for the center.
Start by making a small ball from aluminum foil, and cover it with a piece of crepe paper, securing with hot glue.
Insert stem into ball, and secure with hot glue.
Make a coil from the strip of crepe paper fringe and adhere to top of ball with hot glue.
Attach four leaf shaped petals evenly around ball.
Small petals can be enhanced with small lines of grey marker so they stand out a bit. Attach four small petals evenly spaced, and then the additional five in between the previous row.
Attach the large petals in the same manner as the small petals, with space between each petal, and then in that space the petal from the next row is attached.
Adhere the final large petals to cover the base of the flower, and add leaves is desired.
That is it! I showed a 12 year old boy how to do this, and he succeeded no problem.