Paper Dogwood Blossoms

The art of Paper folding and cutting is certainly not new, I suppose that paper crafting is a real love of mine, and I want to show you how easy it is to create beautiful dogwood blossoms out of something so simple: paper.

Here are the things you'll need:

White card stock

Paper cutter

scissors

hole punch (standard)

bone folder

Distress Inks, I used:

(Old Paper, from Ranger { Hi Tim! } & Sepia, from Archival Ink)

Rubber stamp

I used a snowflake design, because that is what I had on hand,

really anything that will give you a dappled look

Pencil (with an unused eraser)

I made 3 different sizes, 2''-4'', getting the most out of a 12X12 piece of white card stock.

Tree branch (optional)

Glue gun (only if using branch)

~Fold your squares into quarters, using the bone folder to get nice and crisp folds.

~Open the square back up, and fold corner to corner, just using your hand to crease, this gives a softer look to the petals

~Fold the paper back into a square, hold the square on the diagonal, cut the "corners" off, creating a teardrop shape

~Open your paper to reveal your almost dogwood!

And then make a whole bunch

...and a whole bunch more....

When you've finally cut out as many as you want, it's time to make it look real!

Like I said, I used a snowflake stamp and just kept stamping and stamping until it looked random enough, using 'Old Paper'

Then using a standard office hole punch, clip all four petals and then ink (with sepia) it with the unused eraser

If you need more inspiration, study the actual flower...that's what I did!

forestry.about.com

Using the tree branch, I hot glued the little dogwood blossoms on randomly. I knew I was doing this for a mantle display, so I concentrated on the "front" side of the branch. If I was doing this as a center piece, I would glue them facing all directions.