Continuing with The Year of Creativity, I decided to try my hand at paper flowers - or roses to be more specific!

This project is one of those I had put on the backburner for a rainy day. With it being the long weekend over Easter, I found myself with some spare time and although it is decidedly the opposite of a rainy day today (20C and sunny, yes please!) I got cracking.

I had most of what I needed lying around already but these flowers do call for a hot glue gun and crepe paper. Crepe paper is regular tissue paper that's been coated with sizing (a kind of glue) so it holds its form if you crease it. It's also a bit more durable than regular tissue paper which I needed as the paper would be getting wet. It's not that rare but did require a trip to Hobbycraft (which unfortunately for me is two bus journeys away - boo).

When I had returned home victorious and got started, it turns out a little crepe paper goes a long way. I bought three packs of white paper and I only used half of one for this trial attempt. At least I'm stocked up now for future flowers!

To begin, I cut out petals from the paper. I tried to keep things vaguely realistic by making the folds of the paper go vertical up the petals. Then I mixed some acrylic paint together. You don't need to use any special colours for this - just a decent amount of white, and a small amount of of red and yellow. Although the petals dry lighter, colour (especially red) goes a long way when added to white.

Placing a petal over a jar/unimportant pot/scrap paper, I misted them until they were damp (here you'll learn how thick your paper is, go easy on the water until you've got an understanding of what you're dealing with!). Gently begin adding colour to your petals!

Let them dry and peel them off their surfaces. I've seen some people speed up the process by putting the dish in the microwave for for 15-30 second bursts but as it's a long weekend and sunny(!), I wasn't in a particular rush.

I nipped out into the garden and uh, relieved a hebe bush of a burdensome twig. In future I'll be on the lookout for larger, fallen branches as it will allow for larger flowers. I hot glued the petals together, beginning with a curled petal and working out. The buds were similar only scrunched up smaller.

And here is the finished flower! I'm really happy with this as my first attempt and it's lovely in my flat. Plants (both real and 'fake' like this) are slowly taking over the the flat and I am absolutely okay with it. Perhaps I'll try my hand at another species next time...