The Fine Art Of Paper Flowers

introduction

For the past four or five years, I have spent most of my days and nights standing in a pile of paper scraps in our San Francisco flat, making paper flowers big and small. Because we are in close quarters, everyone in my unbelievably patient family has had a role in my career as a paper artist, whether as an idea person, a janitor, or both. This book, which provides instruction on how to make all of my favorite crepe-paper flowers, as well as some wonderful projects using the flowers to adorn your body and home, is the fruit of that labor. As seriously as I take this craft, paper flower making is far from rocket science. While I give detailed instructions and specific techniques for making botanically accurate specimens in this book,I really want you to enjoy the journey and feel free to be creative. The supplies needed are simple and few in number. When I first started making flowers, I worked with the same range of supplies I do now: a roll of crepe paper, a length of wire, and a bit of glue. If you can t wait for crepe to arrive in the mail, start with bougainvillea made of party streamers. If you are out of wire, grab a coat hanger or wooden skewer. There are more materials available on the market than I use myself, and doing the work of creating paper flowers, using your hands, and learning the process are more important than using the perfect supplies. 

I encourage you to approach each flower as a project unto itself. The tutorials range from very easy to not very hard with a little practice. There are flowers in this book that can take five minutes, and a few that can take five hours or more. They have been grouped primarily by the techniques you will use to make them, which loosely relate to how they grow botanically. If this is your first foray into paper flower making, start with the tutorials in Basic Techniques & Starter Specimens (page 21) and then the hybrid tea rose tutorial (page 59) from My Favorite Roses.

CONTENTS

Introduction 1

CHAPTER 1 
Paper, Wire, Glue 7

CHAPTER 2 
The Flowers 19

CHAPTER 3 
Leaves, Stems & Buds 185 

CHAPTER 4
Things to Wear & Things for Your Hair 207

CHAPTER 5 
Giant Paper Flowers 233

TIFFANIE TURNER is a licensed California architect, fine artist and instructor in the art of paper flower making in the United States and worldwide. Her work explores nature and botanical specimens in extremely large and sometimes very small scales, in paper. Her work has been exhibited in the San Francisco Bay Area s Bedford Gallery, Jack Fischer Gallery, the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, and at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, where she was the artist-in-residence. Tiffanie has appeared in Vogue, American Craft, the San Francisco Chronicle, and O Magazine and has been featured online on Design*Sponge, The Jealous Curator, and Poppytalk, among others. Raised in the woods of New Hampshire, Tiffanie now resides with her husband and two children in San Francisco, California, where she has lived for the past twenty years.

"Tiffanie Turner s creations are exquisite. Her D.I.Y. instructions for handmade marigolds, roses, dianthus and daffodils are meticulous."

New York Times

"Under the mantra 'You must make what you see, not what you think you see,' this book guides artisans to astonishing results."
Publishers Weekly

"The first time I saw Tiffanie Turner s work, I was speechless. In her skilled hands, crepe paper, wire, and glue became tiny (and sometimes wonderfully larger-than-life) works of floral art, beautiful enough to anchor the grandest of dining tables. While Tiffanie s flowers hang in museums and galleries, her book makes this intriguing art form accessible to even the most novice of crafters. I can t wait to dive into this beautifully photographed book and its rich collection of inspiring projects."
GRACE BONNEY, founder of Design*Sponge and author of In the Company of Women
 
"Tiffanie and I were introduced decades ago at the San Francisco Flower Market, when I was a floral designer and she was an artist buying blooms to paint. Flowers are still her muse, but now she s immortalizing them in a different medium. In an age when everything is fast paced and fleeting, it s invaluable to create and share lasting beauty and that s exactly what Tiffanie does in this book."
KATE BERRY, style director of Domino magazine
 
"This is a true labor of love from a truly passionate artist. Not only is Tiffanie s attention to detail awe-inspiring, but so is her generosity of information! This gorgeous book is basically like getting the key to a treasure box filled with years of Tiffanie s self-taught knowledge, brilliant tips and tricks, and, of course, more paper flowers than you can even begin to imagine."
DANIELLE KRYSA, founder of The Jealous Curator and author of Your Inner Critic Is a Big Jerk
 
"The first time I saw Tiffanie Turner s breathtaking creations I did a double take. Paper? Impossible! And