hello everyone it's natasha from
treasure books would you look at these
beauties
as you can see i went a little crazy you
know why because it's easy to do it's
quick and it's so much fun in this video
i'm going to show you how to make these
pleated paper flowers we are using
strips of paper off cuts book pages maps
packaging you can use gift wrapping
paper baking paper newspaper
you can use any paper you can get your
hands on the flimsier the better we'll
get into that in a moment after i show
you how to make the flowers i'm going to
give you lots and lots of ideas on how
you can actually use them in your
projects alright let's begin okay so
we're starting off with some strips you
can use leftovers from your previous
projects or you can cut them up yourself
this is a good way to use up some of
those scrapbook papers that you don't
particularly like so there's that
personally i don't measure anything so
all of my strips are different sizes but
generally speaking the wider the strips
the larger the flowers and narrower the
strips the smaller the flowers there are
some potential problems that come up
with this project and i'm going to speak
about all of those problems for example
the wider the strip the quicker you run
out so you actually run out of paper
before forming a full circle but i think
the best way to proceed is to just show
you the technique and then we can see
all of the potential problems and they
may happen on camera so i'm starting
with this strip this strip is one and a
half inches wide and it's 12 inches long
don't bother yourself with that you have
a strip of paper we're going to be using
some really short strips of paper in a
moment too so
here we go this is the technique you
have your strip of paper and now you're
just folding
and plating the paper like this and
you're trying to create a circle and let
me tell you it looks easier than it
actually is because once you start doing
it all of these things
start going wrong now i think with this
one what's going to happen is i'm going
to run out of paper before i form the
full circle and that's okay because we
can maneuver it
to make that into a flower shape that's
the technique anyway
and then i kind of pierce a hole right
there in the middle
and it just i pin it down on this piece
of styrofoam and it just kind of waits
there for my next step so i'm just going
to leave it there for now and i want to
show you a thin strip and how easy it is
to get that full circle like these ones
here and then you can even have
extra so you get layers like this one
here you can see
it's a little bit layered so here we go
and we're folding but we're folding on
an angle rather than just straight folds
so angle you're trying to create a
circle right
so you're kind of meeting everything
every fold here in the middle this is
really hard to explain
so the best thing to do is to just
try and do it yourself i mean it took me
a little while i was looking for
tutorials out there i couldn't really
find anything and here we go you can see
i actually have created a full circle
and i have a little bit of leftover so
you can if you don't want your flowers
to be too thick you can you know choose
to cut that bit off and here we go
that's kind of like you can set them
aside until you're ready for the next
step you don't have to pin them down
they can just sit like this because once
you grab it you can just very easily you
know put it back into that shape but i
like them all sitting here notice how
they don't look perfect they just don't
look they don't even look that great at
all like especially this one that i just
did you can see all these bits but
that's the beauty of it because once you
start putting them together and you ink
the edges a little bit there's no
cutting involved or anything like that
they do look a lot better and especially
when they're actually on projects which
is another thing i'm going to show you
in today's video how to actually use
these and also another thing the thinner
the paper also the easier it is much
easier to fold
so as i'm folding i'm not actually
folding them down completely until the
flower is done i'll show you what i mean
i'm only kind of
keeping it here and i'm not doing this
right away i was doing that at the start
and then i realized that it's actually
easier to maneuver the flower if it's
not already crisply folded down so see
here i ran out and then when i tried to
maneuver it i've already made these
folds and now i have to refold again
and it's looking very messy and just to
reiterate the last point you can see i'm
folding glitting i should sample i'm
pleating the paper into the circle and
i'm holding everything down here but i'm
not folding these bits down until i get
to the end there we go
next thing i want to show you how to do
is book pages and short strips
so i kind of like to get rid of the
white bits and i'm going to chop this
off as well and that's just so that i
only have
the writing uh it's i haven't done this
on all of them
like for example in this one i was using
the edge of the book page this year so
you can see a little bit of writing
inside and i just realized over time
that i preferred to have just the
writing again i didn't measure anything
this is probably about an inch and i
don't even know how long that is but
it's quite short it's like my hand so
you do your folding business the way you
have learned how to do
please please please and then what
happens
you only have enough for about half a
flower and i think you know where i'm
going with this now so you grab your
next piece
first half second half
and you put them together just like so
and these ones are actually my favorite
so as you've noticed at this stage i
appears a whole through all of them and
i'm just showing this because if you
don't have an awl you can use something
like a thumbtack or needle or anything
that you can you know get through those
layers the thicker the layers and the
more you've got on there the harder it
becomes to actually pierce that hole in
the middle so another option would be
just to staple it in the middle
and then we can go about well i didn't
really get that in the middle but you
get the point and then we can go about
hiding that staple and it's probably
easier to do it that way rather than
trying to pierce a hole because it can
get difficult if it's really quite thick
i'm going to try a really wide one with
this and see what happens
uh and this is probably
an inch and three quarters or four and a
half centimeters there we go
okay so i can already see because i have
such a wide strip i didn't really get
even half a circle so i assume i'm going
to need three strips
i really have experimented with this
with this thing
so and this is just the best way that i
found
all right here we go i have three pieces
i think it really looks good so i'm just
putting them together
i love it look at it it's gonna i mean
you're gonna see
how it looks once it's done but this is
great i just don't like this white bit
here but it's fine i'll get over it so
this one was particularly hard to pierce
through probably better to staple when
it's really thick like that
i just wanted to show you it seems like
i only have one to show you when i first
started doing this i would get you can
see this one here right i wouldn't get
to form the full circle and then that's
how i decided what if i put two together
i'm not entirely sure
how i feel about this look it's
different when you're using the paper
that's exactly the same like i just did
with this one here so you can't you
can't tell that it's like three
different pieces right whereas with this
one you can so that might be something
that you actually prefer doing i'm not
sure perhaps you could do really wide
strips and do three different ones like
i did here but use three different
scrapbook papers make a really big
flower i'm going to try that now this is
probably the largest one that i've made
so far and this is a newspaper newspaper
is larger than 12 by 12 but it was
really easy to just maneuver that into
place and then do my folds and it still
looks okay i did go ahead and spray it
with some sprays i'm going to see what
happens when i use really wide strips
and i'm experimenting with paper i'm not
particularly keen on so i don't mind i
don't mind this one but this isn't very
good quality scrapbook paper and the
pattern is not
my favorite so
i don't mind if this
is ruined so i want to get all of my
strips the same size oh same width all
right let's see
it's going to be difficult i can already
tell i'm already struggling just to make
that first fold
oh another another thing as well you can
fold it's whatever is easier for you you
can fold this way
which is what i've been doing so far
or you can fold
this way so you can fold over and keep
going that way or you can fold from
left to right right on left or left on
right whatever's easier for you i'm
going to try this one
the opposite way that i've been doing it
so far
so i'm doing left on right and you know
what i'm going to abandon this whole
thing because it's just not it's not
happening i can cut this down into
strips
regardless of the folds that are already
in the paper and i can still make the
flowers but the wide strip thing it's
just not happening
yet the little strips on the on the
other hand look how easy
and done look at it so cute
it's gonna be cute when it's done which
is what we'll do next and also another
thing that i forgot to mention that you
can do is layer them one on top of the
other and this is what you would do at
this step anyway so you would have a
larger flower for example underneath a
smaller one and you get a layered effect
this doesn't look very good because
they're not done yet like just as an
example you know layer the two on top of
each other but there's a few different
things that you can now go ahead and do
to make this look really nice what i've
done with some of them i'll see if i can
show you a close-up is
i sprayed them with some gold
spray
and some of them like these ones here i
sprayed with the gold spray and then
also some black spray so i just put a
little bit of black acrylic paint into a
spray bottle with water and then i just
went over the top and sprayed so i did a
batch or two of these ones and then i
thought i'm not too keen on the sprayed
effect i mean look how beautiful they
look without any of the spraying so uh
spraying is an option but yeah you can
see like i mean the string does add a
little bit of something extra but then i
also like the really clean and simple
look of this one here so there's a few
different ways that you can embellish
your flowers and that you can keep them
shut right
so the first way is i poke a hole right
through the middle and then i add a
little something else on top so i just
happen to have these two circles and
i've actually done this
on most of them because i really like
that look
you can go ahead and you can cut out
your own shapes you don't have to have
punches i do but you can do it by hand
and then i poke a hole right there in
the middle and then i add a bread so i
can get really creative with this
depending on what type of breads i have
i do have quite a few breads because i
absolutely love breads for so many
different reasons and you can get really
cheap ones
on amazon and ebay and all that sort of
stuff this is a silver one i'm going to
use a silver one
sometimes they're quite fiddly to get
through
the hole on the paper and to be quite
honest the the wider this hole is then
the easier this process is because we're
going through several pieces of folded
paper
and then sometimes this happens this
doesn't happen very often but it just so
happened today and it's quite good so i
can demonstrate what i do it's no big
deal i just turn my bread
so that when i close it it's keeping
everything closed and in place see
and here we go i kind of didn't put that
right through the dead center should
have been moved more this way but
in my eyes they don't have to be i mean
they can't be it's absolutely impossible
to have these perfectly perfect so when
they're a little bit off-center if it's
too much then i might move it a little
bit but if it's something like this i
don't mind it i accept it and i accept
its imperfection and as you can see in
my box over here i have most of them are
actually done with the two circles in a
bread i just really kept it quite simple
some of them have these little punched
out flowers as well so you can really
play around i mean i just wanted to keep
it really quite simple but
another thing you can do i really love
this one i might as well show you this i
was using these paint swatches for my
centers it's really good because i've
got all these different
colors so another thing that you can do
for the center is a button this here is
actually a button you can even do a
punched out butterfly shape because it's
really quite beautiful the butterfly on
the flower and glue it down you know
there's just so many different things
i'm going to show you how i apply the
button
i'm pretty sure that it's quite
you know self-explanatory but
just in case let's go with this one i'm
going to staple it shut very easy and
you know i mean
just cover it with anything you're just
covering the stapler so let's go with
i'm going to use this handmade with love
button and i just pretty much you can
glue it on with hot glue i'm not going
to use hot glue because the hot glue can
seep through these holes and i want to
avoid that so here we go i
popped my button there
and then i kind of punched the holes
already see you can see so i can
actually see it just makes it easier for
me when i'm sewing this button on
and now i just sew the button on as
simple as that probably would be simpler
to just glue the thing down but
you know i can't really control
absolutely everything like how perfect
the flowers gonna be but the things that
i can control
such as you know i don't like the look
of
hot glue seeping through
those holes so then why not just sew it
on and also when i do this i have these
strands and i'm going to show you
how i would use this in a project
so you can see on this one here i left
the strands because i can use that there
we go and then of course you know inking
the edges a little bit
it gives it a nice little finish makes
everything kind of stand up or stand out
a little bit more
depending what look you're going for you
can go ahead and decorate it in other
ways you can add some black dots you can
do some doodling with some white pens
possibilities are endless another nice
thing on on this type of paper would be
some watercoloring and that would look
beautiful so these three are the button
ones and i really like them but they do
involve a little bit extra work
let's just do one more i want to do this
one that that's in three pieces oh you
can make like little butterflies too
okay let's stick with pleated paper
flowers i'll just make it nice and
simple for me and just staple the whole
thing here we go i wonder if i should
make a layered one something like this
perhaps it would be better if i can oh i
like this look at this
that looks very shabby chic doesn't it
and then if i pop this one on top the
only issue with this type of thing is
that it gets really really wide you know
and then you can't kind of have it
inside the journal at all or you might
need a really long
bread which i actually do these are for
documents and you know like stack of
documents to hold them together so i
could potentially
use a really long bread to hold
everything in place or i could simply
just glue them together and i'm just
going to go ahead and hot glue them
together so you can make these look even
more special by adding some flowers that
you may already have in your stash for
example
i don't know i mean it looks quite
beautiful
so why not i'm gonna do that
and here we go they turned out really
quite beautiful and i'll show you closer
so you can see
i've used hot glue on some of these and
some i used the brad method
with some flowers that i had in my stash
and then you know this is look how thick
this is so obviously there's those
things to consider and obviously the
bulkier the flower on top the less you
can actually do
with these in projects and speaking of
projects i am now going to show you how
you can actually apply these in your
projects hopefully you have some of your
own ideas turning in your mind already
but here are some of mine in this
project i've used it as part of my
closure i created a mini journal
basically what i did is i put two
envelopes together like this
just like that i've sewn in my signature
over here which is what you can see
there
and when i fold it down i have this
and i applied one of my flowers on the
flap here and i've used one with the
bread so i actually used that bread to
put it through the flap over here and
then i wrapped some cord around just
some twine
underneath tied a knot and that becomes
part of the closure just like that i'm
in a little journal
next thing i did i just applied it to
some envelopes you can see the bread
here i have a tutorial on making these
wonky envelopes and look how beautiful
that finishes it off same thing over
here this is another one of the
wonky envelopes i'll pop the tutorial in
the description box below if you wanted
to have a look and then just here this
is a newspaper one that i did and again
utilize that bread this one here is
another one that didn't complete the
full circle and i just finished it off
with a book page so it looks quite nice
on a project they don't look fabulous on
their own like this but i think as part
of a project they do look quite
beautiful and then this one here i just
i just love it so much
next thing i did i particularly love
this one is i put it on a paper clip
look at this
i'm not sure if this is actually my
favorite one so this is again another
one with the bread and i simply popped
this paper clip through there so it's
not actually going anywhere so it's very
easy to do you simply just undo the feet
like this if that's the correct
terminology and then you close at the
feet or pop them back down and there we
go it does move a little bit but it's
not it can't actually go anywhere
and
it's really really cute and it looks
especially fabulous on a page like this
and then of course you can use that
paperclip you know to hold something in
like this on a page
next thing that you can do these ones
that have the strings that you know we
did with the button you can use it in
something like this
when you're wrapping a little gift you
just tie that at the bottom and you have
a beautiful little gift presentation
or really you can use those strings to
tie it onto anything
next thing i have over here is some tags
i simply applied it to a tag
just like that use the bread
if you don't like the look of the breads
on the back of your projects you can
just glue them down use hot glue
or even cover the bread i mean the
breads really don't bother me so there
we have it and i think it looks
beautiful on a tag another thing you can
do is just a square piece of paper and
then you fold it diagonally like this
you pop this on there you glue it down
and then
you find a page in your journal so let's
pretend that's glued down and now i
would put glue on the two sides over
here glue it to the corner of my page
like this and then you create a pocket
here and then also it can be opened up
for some journaling space
i mean really you can put it anywhere
and it looks really cool there can be
tabs in a journal like that you know
so they're sticking out
you can have a few layered throughout
the journal
and then also the last thing that i did
is i went into my art journal where i
just come in and do all types of
different things and i created where is
it right here
a little art journal page
just like that
i drew something here that's supposed to
resemble grass and these are the flowers
this page is not finished because i want
to do some writing up here i think they
look so beautiful next to each other
like this on a page it's quite bulky of
course they're quite thick but in this
art journal
i'm going to do a tutorial eventually on
how i created this from a catalog
they're very thick pages so i can go
ahead and write on this without any
problems even though this is quite thick
underneath and i mean the possibilities
are endless so far i've explored tags
envelopes corner flip ups paper clips
journal cover present wrapping art
journal page and we've spoken about tabs
and there's just so many different ways
that we can apply this beautiful craft
and the best thing is we're using up
strips of paper cutoffs from previous
projects it can be done in front of the
tv if you don't get the hang of it right
away keep trying because once it clicks
it will it will click i hope this has
made it easier for you guys i hope you
enjoy it thank you so much for watching
let me know what you think and i'll see
you in my next video bye