Make a Crepe Paper Flower Fairy - DIY Craft Tutorial
These whimsical flower fairies are made of some of my favorite materials: spun cotton, crepe paper, and pipe cleaners! I had some extra-skinny pipe cleaners that I used for the arms and legs, but regular pipe cleaners will work fine. The heads come printed with the sweet face, and are in the shop here. You can also use a blank 30mm spun cotton ball, and paint your own faces. The templates are below. Just be sure to print at 100%.
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Supplies:
- 30mm Spun cotton angel face (pattern discontinued, use 30mm Sweet Angel pattern instead)
- Crepe paper in petal color, and green
- Three 3mm green pipe cleaners
- Two 12mm spun cotton eggs
- 1.5 inch chipboard circle or cardboard circle cut from cereal box
- Hot glue, glue sticks
- Scissors
- Ruler
- Templates: Click here for printable PDF
Step 1:
Print and cut out the templates (above.) Cut across the end of a crepe paper fold in the petal color, using the petal skirt template to measure the width. Unfold the crepe paper into a long strip, and cut to a 24 inch length. Lay the petal skirt template on the end, and fold it up inside the crepe paper, end-over-end. Pull out the template, set it on top of the folded strip lined up with the edge, and cut out the petal shape, leaving the lower part of the template uncut. Unfold, and you should have a long strip of connected petals.
Step 2:
Bend a pipe cleaner in half, and cut to 5 inches. This will be the legs. Glue the bent part to the straight edge of the very end of the petal strip. Shape the petals by gently stretching the center of each petal outward, creating a slightly cupped shape. Gather the straight edge of the petal strip a few inches at a time, while simultaneously turning the legs. Hold the gathers in place at the top while you wrap the petal strip around the legs. The gathers will make the petal skirt full. When you reach the end of the petal strip, wrap the very top inch tightly with a pipe cleaner to hold the skirt gathers in place. Fluff the skirt outward, and re-shape the petals.
Step 3:
Add small dots of glue to the ends of the pipe cleaner legs, and insert into the 12mm spun cotton eggs, which will be the feet. Bend at the ankle. Glue the feet to the cardboard circles, making sure you position them about an inch apart so that the figure will be stable.
Step 4:
Cut a 1-inch segment off of the end of a green crepe paper fold, across the grain, so that it unfolds into a long strip. Glue to the pipe cleaner wrapping at the top of the skirt, and wrap with the strip to build out the body. Wrap the center of a pipe cleaner around the top of the body, twist tightly at the back to secure, and trim to make arms.
Step 5:
Cut two rectangles of green paper that are twice the length of the shawl template. Stack the two rectangles, fold them in half across the grain, and set the template on top with the flat part of the shape lined up with the fold line. Cut out the leaf shawl shape, and unfold. Twist each shawl shape twice at the center, overlap the leaves slightly, and glue to the top of the torso. One pair of leaves is for the front, and one pair is for the back.
Step 6:
Glue the head on the body. Cut out two leaf hands, and glue to the ends of the arms.
Step 7:
Cut out 8-10 tiny petals using the hat petal template. Glue each one to the top of the head, arranging them like hair until the top of the head is covered. Cut a 4-5 inch strip of green paper, snip about 1 inch of the short end to make a pointed fringe. Twist the rest of the strip tightly to make a flower stem. The fringe will naturally fan out as you twist toward that end. Glue to the top of the head, covering the pointed ends of the hat petals.
Products featured in this tutorial:
Spun Cotton Angel Faces (pattern discontinued,
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