Book Page Blooms Tutorial

I've been making flowers out of book pages lately. Here are some pics of some of them.




They are all made from book pages except the bottom one in the second pic on which I used the same method but with scrapbook paper.

First, cut 10 to 20 squares from book pages.


They don't need to be absolutely perfect squares but get them as close to squares as you possibly can. The size of your square is obviously going to dictate the size of your flower. I suggest you start with about three inch squares for your first flower until you get what you're doing, then do whatever size you like.

Take a square and fold it in half diagonally. Fold it diagonally again. Then take the flap of the triangle on the right side and fold it over to the left so it looks like this.


Turn the piece over and fold the left layer over to the right. Let it open up and you'll have a piece that looks like this.


Close it up again. Find the point that has no open edges because this is the tip that you will sew through and which will hold the whole thing together. Hold that tip (this is shown at the bottom of the piece in the following photo) and cut a curve across the top. You can do this by eye but I've marked with a pen in the photo below approximately where you need to cut for ease of reference. Please note that you need to cut through all the layers.


Once you've cut it, mark your piece with a cross as you're not going to use this one as an actual petal but rather as a guide to where to cut all the other petals.


Now, start to make your petals proper. Take a square, fold it into a triangle, etc, etc, as above and when you come to the cutting part, just place the first one you did with the cross on over the top of the petal you're working on, line it up and use it as a guide to cut the curve so that they will all look the same.

I've been using eighteen to twenty petals on my book page blooms but, for this one, I'm just going to use twelve petals and see how it looks. Once you have the number of petals you've decided to use, thread a needle with some strong thread. I used six-stranded embroidery thread and just separated out two strands of it and used that. Make a knot in your thread and start threading on the petals by going through the tip of each petal like this.


It's important to make sure that you actually pass the needle through all layers when you sew through the tip.

You don't need to thread the petals right down to the knot. That's just there to make sure if you do, the petals you've already threaded don't come off. Here I have about five or six petals threaded. You can see how it's beginning to fan out into a nice round flower shape.


Now, I've threaded on all twelve of my petals.


At this point, remove the needle and make sure that the petals are all lined up and none have got caught inside the other, then pull both ends of the thread until the flower is as tight as you would like it in the centre. Next tie a surgeon's knot. That's just an overhand knot but you pass the thread through the middle a second time before pulling tight. I then usually do a reef knot on top of that just to make sure it stays secure. Trim the ends.

Decide which is the top and which is the bottom. Have the bottom facing upwards as now you need something to stick on the bottom to stabilise it. I used some round wooden toy parts that I normally use as button blanks but you could use a circle of sturdy cardboard or chipboard or whatever. Glue your circle onto the bottom of your flower.


Once the glue is dry, turn the flower over so the top is facing you as it's now time to decide what to put in the middle on top of your flower. How tight you pulled the threads will dictate how big the hole is in the middle of your flower and hence whether you use a bead or a button in the centre. In this flower, I have quite a small hole so I will use a bead. Tada, another book page flower!


Try them with recycled newspaper, recycled gift wrap, recycled magazines, several layers of tissue, crepe paper, oddments of scrapbook paper, whatever. Note, that if the paper is relatively heavy, it's a bit difficult to keep the petals aligned. This happened with the one I made with scrapbook paper so I ended up gluing the petals together across the whole edge of each one rather than sewing them at the points. I only used ten petals for the one I made with scrapbook paper as that's all it really needed with the thick paper. You can also use fabric but you have the raw edges showing where you've cut the curve and, although you can singe the ends to stop any further fraying, I, personally, don't like this look.

If you let the petals go all higgledy piggledy when you pull rather than lining them up, you will end up with a ruffle flower. Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Let me know if you have any questions!