Valentine’s Topiary

Valentines is one of my favorite holidays for flora! Red roses abound, and the tradition of flower giving prevails. One of the joys of paper flower making is the ability to create flowers in unusual, rare and wonderful colors. Fantastic creations like red lotus, red asters, and others are possible. There’s no end to what is imaginable.

A Topiary

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Beginning a new floral piece always starts with deciding upon the form. Topiaries are one of my favorites forms. There’s something very elegant about the shape and how they’ve appeared in ho

I love using the twisty grape vines as the stems. They add a particular charm to the final piece. The lend nicely to the tree form of the topiary. They’re also useful for holding on to as a couple of layers of ‘greens’ are added to the form to create an under-layer upon which the florals will rest.

Creating the Flowers

Red roses are a traditional Valentines favorite. But I wanted to spice up the arrangement this year. Some red lilies were the perfect choice. A few more large florals were needed so I threw in some red gerbera daisies. As I was crafting a gerbera with a thicker paper, I found that inverting the petal curl resulted in an amazing red lotus. A collection of small red asters completed the ensemble..

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Finishing Touches

It’s alot of fun bringing it all together. You start out with a general idea and let new ideas evolve. Some are embraced and some are discarded. A few discarded ideas were using sage colored leaves instead of bright green. I also dabbled with the idea of using pink florals besides just red. But ultimately the final piece seemed best as just red.