Let's Get SideTracked with Paper Flowers

It's probably a rose based on the foliage

As if still maintaining a blog isn't throwback enough, I currently work above, get this, a Barnes and Noble store. This hanger-on always has paper flowers for sale and, well, my bedroom has two vases, one of which has a fallen-off bit of my pampas grass stuffed in it and nothing in the other. Also, it appears that Winblaad's Tusind og en nat bride is holding, let's call it a peony. So, combine these two things plus a visit to the library for a book called Paper Flower Art and I am distracted again. The bonus of this new tangent is I need not buy one thing. I used:

• 

  My paper peonies and
  the amazing effects
  alcohol inks can give. It is 
  giving off rose vibes without
  manipulation!

  craft paper
• 93% isopropol alcohol
  
• food coloring
  
• alcohol ink - Ranger alcohol pearl alchemy and was in Clearance at Michael's
• crepe paper
• iridescent pigment powder - Jacquard micro-pearlescent
• craft paint - Americana Hauser Medium Green
• hot glue, hot glue, hot glue

All of this I had on hand. The 93% alcohol was bought previously to use the iridescent pigment powder to try to make my plastic flowers iridescent. I have been on an iridescence kick for a bit. After trying to brush it, spray it, and just dump it onto the plastic, I realized that the one alcohol ink I did buy to see if the problem was my formulation (it wasn't) did not color the plastic bottle it was packaged in and therefore, my experiment was never going to work. Why does it say on the bottle that it works on non-porous materials? 

Now, the book tells me to buy 180g crepe paper from Italy, but I have left over crepe paper streamers from Tootie Pie's piñatas, and so I just used that. It doesn't stretch or cup like the Italian stuff, sure, but it looks 100 times better than the ones sold in Barnes and Noble which are just cut from tissue paper. Oh, and you get to push the crepe paper roll into the alcohol solution which makes each roll unique. And your hands red. I even used gel food coloring, which didn't mix well into the alcohol and so it looked like the roll had deep red pustules, but with time, the pustules spread out across the paper creating a lovely pink. I doused this same roll with the yellow-gold alcohol ink that I actually purchased and my homemade iridescent concoction. After drying, I wrapped the crepe paper around my hand 10 times or so, and then cut out peony petals. I also read that you need a styrofoam ball to make the bud, but I just wadded up some of the leftover crepe paper from my cutting.

I used card stock for my stems and leaves and lots of hot glue to attach them and the petals. Each peony was created using different crepe papers. One red one took a bleach bath, and the white got the above-mentioned pustule treatment. I did the red for the bath on all, but the gel one got a second dosing with what was supposed to be orange, but just became pinker and yellow - no real blending of gel colors there. I have one more roll and bought more food coloring to try again. Here they are: 

I sprinkled some petals around the 
vase to make it look legit

This seems like a good way to make money! The worse looking ones sold at B&N are $8 a stem. I created four stems, including a bud. I actually like mine better than the cupped ones in Paper Flower Art, despite mine not having pistels and stamen. The author, Jesse Chui, used double sided crepe paper and for her stems, tubing. Her pistels were created from floral tape - I'll leave this for the clients to ask for. 

I have now a bowl full of petals, but this will only create 2 stems most likely. My version's stems are awful and I bought clear tubing for my refrigerator from an aquarium store years ago, so maybe! This is currently pure profit but if I end up purchasing supplies for Tootie Pie's room, who knows? If I sold my bouquet above at $5 a stem that's a nice $20, but I do believe I spent an inordinate amount of time drying my crepe paper and all sorts of other inefficiencies and it took the better part of a day. A fun day, but $20 a day, man, that won't get you far.