Fuzzy Lollipop Flower Tutorial

I just love the new Prima Innocence 2 flowers and was inspired to make my own using some inexpensive thin mulberry paper (can be found at most local artist materials supply shops - where university art students buy from have the best prices though). You can use thicker paper like people use for making tear bears but then the cost is a lot more and probably worth just buying the Prima ones, LOL.

Supplies you will need:

- a sheet of mulberry paper (a 12x12 sheet will yield 3 good sized flowers of 2-3 inches each)

- a very firm bristled toothbrush (if you don't have a wire brush used for tear bears)

- a Q-tip type cotton swab

- a decorative brad

- a little pot of water

- pearl strand (optional, not shown)

Step 1: Using the Q-tip, freehand "draw"one water circle at a time and then with dry fingers gently pull out the circles. For a 2-3 inch flower you will need 7 circles (anything bigger use 9 circles). You will want to progressively get smaller with your circles. 

Step 2: Stack the flower larger to smaller circle and secure with your brad.

Step 3: Brush the layers all around, stroking from middle to outer edge to make the paper fuzz a little more.

Step 4: One layer at a time, starting with the smallest, crumple them up toward the center as shown below. Be careful not to pat down the fuzzy edges though.

Step 5: Carefully open up the layers starting with the largest circle. This circle flower is about 2 inches in diameter.

Step 5: You can further decorate your flower by adding a ring of string pearls around your decorative brad but be careful not to put too much glue as it will stain the thin paper. The larger flower below is over 4 inches in diameter and I used 9 circle layers for that one.

Here are the original Prima flowers I used as inspiration. I suspect they are made of thick mulberry but I have not seen these yet in person. Just fell in love with this picture and had to try making something similar for an upcoming layout.

Thanks for stopping by. As always, I am more than happy to share how I make my flowers but should you make them yourself and post online, please give credit where due (as these tutorials do take a fair bit of time to produce). TFL!