Happy Birthday to me: Here's a Blooming Paper Garden for YOU!

I spent my birthday today, er, yesterday, creating the Folding Rose* pattern for all our Paper Forest Friends (YOU!). (I hope the pattern and instructions are clear and easy to follow. Please report back with any things that need smoothing out, or better yet, with photos of the rose(s) you make!)

A heartfelt gift of a pattern for the flower, card base, and instructions are included on a three page pdf for you HERE!(NEW LINK!!!). It's viewable and printable there.

*The main secret to know about these flowers is that it's really just about making rings of petals, anchoring them to a base on the fold and then folding the flower in half. That's IT! You do that, in any sloppy form, and you've got a beautiful blooming paper flower!


Making a one-of card for my ballet teacher was one thing, but making a repeatable pattern that hopefully everyone could assemble again and again? That required some proper drafting. I sculpted and shaved the patterns I had until I felt it was more polished. It took a few revisions (see debris center top). It would have taken me a week to make the tabs fall in different angles, so, the closed card, especially if made on thick watercolor stock, is a bit bulged. But it still is a *WOW* to see the blooming blossom appear as the base card is opened (see bottom row above).


You can cut out and trace the pattern pieces onto any sort of paper you'd like to use, it only needs to be stiff enough to insert the petal tabs into the base. For the samples above, I watercolored onto heavy textured paper and either traced with a pencil (by taping the pattern to a bright window, seen on left upper) or ran around the cut out pieces with a scoring stylus-tool. Both methods work but tracing with a stylus doesn't leave pencil marks. Additional color may be added after the flower is completely assembled as well. I used pastel chalks in contrasting colors applied with a pompom puff for smooth blush blending.

Thanks to everyone for expressing such enthusiastic interest. If you do make one (or two!) snap a photo and we'll set up a Flickr pool to post them to!

I certainly hope you enjoy enjoy enjoy making your paper garden for all those special loved ones and the weddings coming up! Cheers!