Today’s flower is the Dahlia. Almost any color can be used to make the dahlia. They come in a wide variety of colors. Flower Week finishes up soon. You can also see how to do rolled flowers too.
These flowers have many different parts in the download file. You can attach leaves or not. The leaves are in this file but I simplified them to make the leaves one piece.
What you will need:
- cardstock scraps
- liquid glue or glue gun
- Download File
Paper Selection
The flowers can be cut from any color or patterned cardstock. I cut them all from the same color. That is how a Dahlia truly looks. But you can cut the layers from different colors if you want. Patterned paper will even look good on this flower.
Cutting the Dahlia Paper Flower
If you want to cut the flower out of felt or fabric and you have a maker use the rotary wheel. The center stamen will not cut from felt however and the flower cannot be shaped into a 3D flower when made from felt.
If you don’t have a maker, it is a little harder. I tried using fusible material and haven’t made it work yet but I’m still trying. What I did do to get the felt cut was first use the deep cut blade and then attach the felt to contact paper. I used Duck Brand contact paper. Place the felt on your mat with the contact paper down and cut on the felt fused setting. Tape the whole piece down to the mat with painters tape. The Cricut cuts the design twice. It cuts it well if it isn’t to intricate of a cut.
Assembly
Once all the parts are cut out stack the paper from largest to smallest. Then bend the petals up from the center circle to give the flower some dimension. Foam tape can add to this effect although the example picture above was glued with a tape runner.
Take the stamen and curl the spines in with your fingers. Glue them in the center of the flower. Finally, you can add the leaves if you want. I have included them in this file.
And your Dahlia Paper Flower is done!
I have made a page with all the links to the paper flower tutorials. The tutorials for the other paper flowers can be found here.
Below is a picture of the wreath I made from all the Flower Week paper flowers.
