West Elm invited me to check out their Paper Flowers workshop with Lia Griffith last week. I’ve been really impressed with the events at West Elm thus far and was excited to join in on another one. Even more excited because I had met Lia a few other times and really wanted to see how she did paper flowers.
I’ve made hundreds of paper flowers for different projects. But, I’ve never had a pattern and no two flowers ever looked alike. It was a lot of fun seeing the ways that Lia did her flowers and how she made them more accessible to everyone by creating printable patterns. Her website has a TON of paper flower tutorials with easy to follow images for each step—Check out one of her Paper Rose Tutorials. She also has printables available so you can print off and make flowers that look exactly like hers. She will be adding videos for the tutorials soon too!
My mother-in-law and my brother-in-law’s girlfriend went to the class with me to try their hands at making the flowers. All three of us came out with gorgeous looking flowers… and, I’m still in awe that you couldn’t tell the difference between our three roses in the end!
One of the big secrets to making beautiful paper flowers? Curl the paper with the back of your scissors! Similar to curling a bit of ribbon, put the back of your scissors against the paper with your thumb lightly pressing the paper to the scissors. Then, pull your scissors back quickly, pulling the paper down as well. Try not to rip the paper, but you can do this several times until your paper has curled a tad. (Hard to explain, easy to execute.)
About West Elm: If you haven’t heard of West Elm, then you are missing out. West Elm is a modern home decor store affiliated with Pottery Barn. The store does SO many awesome collaborations with artists across the world and different local vendors. I’m sort of in love with a ton of their furniture, everything from their new Market section (think old school general store), and many small home decor items. But, I also love that they have events like these that work hand in hand with local artists and bring something more to the community. I mean, West Elm sells paper flowers… they certainly didn’t have to host a class on how to make them. But, I liked that they thought it would be a fun idea to bring this skill to customers so that they could make their own flowers for their home and mix and match with the flowers in the store. Portland locals can check out the West Elm Portland Facebook Page for updates on future classes. This weekend West Elm is hosting “Get Creative with Color” a fun class on how to decorate with color.
About Lia Griffith: Lia is a DIYer that shares her projects on her blog, “Lia Griffith: Handcraft Your Life.” She does so much more than just paper flowers… though, her tutorials for those are pretty amazing. Lia got started in the paper craft world (the business side of it all) with her Papier Couture (wearable paper!) dresses. Seriously gorgeous work. Check it out and follow along. She posts party crafts as well as home crafts. Lia will be doing more of these fun classes in the Portland area, as well as possibly more in the PNW. So, keep updated with her blog for more information if this is something that interests you!
Disclaimer: I received free entry into the $10 Paper Flowers course. All opinions and thoughts are my own.
