‘Forever Flowers’ Are Easy To Make

By Nancy K. Crevier

A small but attentive class spent two hours on Thursday afternoon, November 12, crafting whimsical flowers from paper twist (raffia) and colorful, dried cornhusks, at the C.H. Booth Library, under the watchful eye of Danbury artist Katie Stevenson.

Seven participants watched as Ms Stevenson demonstrated how with just a few simple supplies and a little time, beautiful, everlasting bouquets could be created.

“Everybody thinks it’s very hard, but it’s not,” Ms Stevenson assured the group, as she swiftly turned a short length of cornhusk into a tight roll that would serve as the core of a blossom. Wrapping the core snugly with floral tape, she then folded narrow strips of husks (dyed at home into subtle and brilliant colors) along the length of the core to create petals, securing each layer of strips with 28-gauge floral wire. Visual texture can be added to the core by cutting the tips of the top end with pinking shears, said Ms Stevenson, deftly trimming the core she had just made.

For variety, she suggested gluing very thin, pointed scrap strips in between the layers of folded petals. A very airy and delicate blossom is made with fewer layers of petals, she pointed out, and a fuller flower is made with the addition of several layers of petals secured to the core.

Multicolored paper twists, available at craft stores, can be unfolded, and cut and formed into flowers using the same technique, Ms Stevenson said.

As the new florists started work on their paper blossoms, Ms Stevenson walked about, providing tips and encouraging the first attempts.

“An odd number of petals is more visually pleasing in each layer,” she suggested at one point. When one student expressed frustration that her petals were uneven, Ms Stevenson pointed out that perfection was not the goal. “Even nature has some imperfections,” she noted.

In only a few minutes, as Ms Stevenson had promised, the class began turning out colorful flowers. For most of the attendees, choosing the colors to make the flowers turned out to be the most difficult step of the afternoon’s craft.

As the finished flowers piled up, Ms Stevenson showed the class how miniscule colored beads, colored popcorn kernels, glitter, and snipped pieces of corn silk could be glued to the centers of the flowers for a creative touch. She then turned lengths of heavy, hard floral wire into stems, by tightly wrapping light green floral tape about the wire. An inch of wire at one end was left unwrapped, touched with Tacky Glue, and inserted into the base of a finished flower’s core. More floral tape securely held the flower to the stem. For a finishing touch, narrow strips of green paper were bound into the stem about one-third of the way up the stem.

Class members left with a good start to a no-care bouquet and plenty of knowledge to continuing “growing” their gardens at home.