We made lots of crepe paper flowers (the tutorial for which is here) for a fiesta some months ago, and then along came another fiesta party and our crepe paper flower expertise was requisitioned again.

We were able to recycle some of the previous flowers, but variety is the spice of life as well as paper flower arrangements, so I got to work making a few fresh ones to replace some tattered ones. I also made some different types I call ‘Poppies’, well, because they look like poppies to me.

Read on if you want to know how.
What you need:

• Elmer’s glue – or other white glue that comes in a squirty type bottle.
• Crepe Paper – in two colors – I liked black with color for the poppies. Two packages of crepe paper sheets will make two big flowers with middle color paper to spare.  I got mine mailed to me from Mister Art which is where I got my last batch of paper.   You need the big sheets for these.  They’re called ‘Crepe Folds’.  The rolls that party stores sell won’t do.
• Green covered wire floral stems – buy them the length and the stiffness/wire gauge that you need. If you are going to make long stemmed flowers, get a heavier wired stem
• Frog Tape – This is green masking tape – it’s stickier than floral tape and it’s great for a lots of things.  I’m a fan of Frog Tape.  You can get this at Michael’s or Joann’s or other craft stores. But you can also get this at hardware stores or paint stores because it works great for masking things. It’s better than the blue tape for masking.  Here we are using the tape not for masking but as a stickier version of floral tape.

What to do:

1. Start by cutting across the rolled up colored sheet of crepe paper across the middle.

Then eyeball 1/3 of the black or the middle color roll and cut across that.

You’ll have a colored piece about 10″ wide and another piece for the middle (mine is black) about 7″ wide.

Unroll the black piece (the middle narrower roll) and cut it in half cross wise.

2.  Make a not-too-globby trail of glue about 3/4″ from

the end of the black unrolled piece of crepe paper.

Elmer’s Glue all works great for this –  because you want a thin trail. Little skips in the glue trail as shown are okay.

3. Starting on one end of the black paper place the end of the green paper covered wire (Heretofore called the ‘stem’) about 1-1/2″ over the edge of the gluey side of the crepe paper. Start by folding about 1″ of the paper over itself and then start simultaneously gathering and rolling the paper on the stem. You want the middle part to look bunchy and gathered.  Bunch and gather all the way to the end of the black part.

Try not to travel with the crepe paper on the stem.  You want the gluey edge to be lining up with the previous gathered and rolled bits of paper.

4. Next, cut the petal colored paper (heretofore orange) in half widthwise. Squirt a line of glue down 3/4″ from the edge again all the way along the length of the paper. Place the black center piece now gathered on the stem onto the orange piece and again start rolling and gathering.

How tightly you roll vs. gather determines how full the flower will be. I liked going around the circumference of the flower with this first piece of orange crepe paper about 2 times.  That means there’s a whole lot more gathering than rolling going on along the length of the orange piece.

Get your second piece of orange or colored crepe paper.  Again, squirt a glue line 3/4″ from the edge. Overlap the start of the rolling and gathering by a few inches and gather and roll this second piece.   To have the flower look even fuller and more poppy like, I went about one and a half times around the stem with that second piece.
5. Tear off about 12″ of the green Frog Tape. (I suppose you could use floral tape, but what with the glue on the crepe paper, I didn’t have really good luck with my floral tape but maybe it was old floral tape.)

Wind it around the bottom of the gluey gathered crepe paper two times, and then start winding down the stem a bit. This tape doesn’t stretch like floral tape, so you’ll need to fold it a bit on itself. Wind it diagonally down and back up the stem to strengthen the crepe paper/stem bond and tear off the excess tape.
6. Gently stretch the petal parts of the crepe paper flower to open up the flower a bit.
Enjoy!