PAPER ROSETTES TUTORIAL - FINALLY!

Paper Rosettes Tutorial - about time! I've been promising this for awhile now so thought I'd better get to it! These are so fun and ADDICTIVE to make. Once I get started, I just can't stop.

There are alot of tutorials on YouTube and that's where I first went to learn how to make them. Everyone I watched was about the same, until the end part where you have to smoosch (is that a word?) it together and glue it. That was the hard part and after many tries, I figured there MUST be an easier way!

And I did come up with an easier and simpler way to make them.  I was pretty proud of myself.........
patted myself on the shoulder and thought I was a real wizard!

Alas!............ my balloon has been popped.  Just the other day, I was on YouTube browsing, and saw a rosette tutorial. I thought I'd watch it just for fun, so I could watch the person struggle with the final gluing steps and get a good giggle! But low and behold........... SHE was using MY secret!  One catch though.. she had posted her video about a year ago.  Phooey... I guess I'm not the only smart one out there. Someone else had thought this up too

Well, here goes anyway. There are alot of photos so be patient!

I use a 12x12 sheet of paper. Light or medium weight is good. It can be one sided or two sided. Heavy cardstock works but sometimes is harder to do the folds.

First, I score the paper every 1/2 inch. NOTE, if you just want to do one rosette, use a 1" x 12" strip instead of a whole sheet.

Then turn paper over and score in between the half inch scores, so the final paper is scored every 1/4".  It seems to fold easier if you do it this way instead of scoring every 1/4" on one side.

Now cut your paper into strips anywhere from 3/4" to 1-1/2".  I do some at 3/4" for tiny rosettes. 1" is a good size for normal. Anything bigger makes a nice larger rosette. If you want a big rosette, try a 2" strip.

A note here, if you just want to make one rosette, you only need one strip of paper. To start, I would suggest a 1" strip, and score it every 1/4" per my above instructions.  This is great if you want to use up your scraps!

Now start accordian folding your strip at every score line, back and forth, just like you did when you were a kid making little fans.  Try to keep the folds even and don't let them get wonky and uneven.

As you fold, I like to be sure the folds are crisp and flat, so every few folds, I kind of push down on the entire little accordian.

When all done, really press it all together and try to do it so the folds are all pretty even.  As you go, you may have to tweak some of the folds to keep them even!

Here's the finished strip. You can now lay it down and let it unfold. It won't pop out very far if you've made the folds nice and crisp.

Now cut off one of the ends. It doesn't matter which one.

See?  like this.......

Try to cut it off right at the fold (not like me.. I kind of messed this one up!) I trimmed off that little bit left to the right of the fold.

Now put a piece of the heavy duty score tape on the little flap at the end. You MUST use the heavy duty tape or your glue gun. A light weight tape or glue stick doesn't work. It just pops apart eventually.

Now you want to put your two ends together, so that the little flap with the score tape on it (you have removed the paper strip) goes over the flap at the other end of the accordian strip. This will form a continuous hill and valley to match all the other folds.

See here where I joined it? You can't even tell where I joined it and that's the way you want it.

Here's your joined strip - forms a circle.

Now for the fun part!

You've got to SMOOSCH it down! Kind of press everything down on the inside of the circle. It will then lay flat, like the below photo.

You need to scrunch it up so the center hole is really small.

Now you ask? what do I do now? how do I glue this thing? That was my initial dilemma!  Some people put a bunch of hot glue in the middle and try to let it dry.. (doesn't work very well).... some people try to glue a little circle onto it by holding it with one hand, gluing the circle with the other hand, and then putting the (by then dried hot glue) circle on top.... NOPE doesn't work! the whole thing just pops up and you fight with the strands of hot glue or the glue drying too fast.  Any other glue doesn't hold and the thing ends up popping up anyway!  

This was VERY frustrating to me!  The gals on the YouTube videos didn't seem to have too much trouble, but I'm sure it took lots of practice before they got it right.

Now for my secret (well, I thought it was mine!).  Oh... and you can let the rosette pop up while you do this! Once you do this, you are good to go for all of the rest of your rosettes, forever and ever.

Get out all sizes of little lids.  I used them from vitamin bottles, prescription medicine bottles, one of my little clear storage tubes and the black one is from a little glass teapot that I have. It's an odd size but I use it all the time.

And VOILA!  You can pop your little smoosched flower right into the lid and it is held there PERFECTLY while you go and put hot glue on your little paper circle. BE SURE TO PLACE THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROSETTE FACING UP.  Before gluing the circle on the rosette (see below), play with the rosette a little bit to even up the folds.

I had to play around with different lid sizes for the different sized strips that I cut. I now cut my strips to match the lid size.  I looked around the house forever to find the size lid (above) from my teapot, to fit my 1-1/4 or 1-1/2" rosettes!

I find that a prescription bottle lid works great for a 3/4" strip.  A vitamin bottle lid works good for the 1" strip, but I found that it's a little small for the 1" strip, so I cut my 1" strips at 7/8" rather than 1 inch.  It's just a matter of trial and error.

THAT'S MY GREAT SECRET (I thought it was mine... oh well) and it works so wonderfully that I just couldn't stop making rosettes!

Now, while your rosette is nestled all cozy in it's custom fitted lid, put hot glue on a 1" circle that you have precut using your punch or Cricut. Put the glue out to the edges of the circle.  I find that a heavier cardstock works best.  If your rosette doesn't fit SNUGLY in the lid, it will still pop up and you'll need to put something on top of it to hold it while you glue your paper circle.

Then place the glued circle onto the rosette and hold for about 5 seconds, while pressing down quite firmly.

You can easily remove the rosette from the lid using your tweezers.

And there you have it!  Your rosette is solid and glued like a rock and won't come undone!

Add any sort of embellishment you want to the middle. I like buttons. There are so many fancy ones out there. Sometimes I put a gem on top of the button, or you can add a little bow of twine. 

I've cut two different size circles, glue them together, glitter the edge and then use it instead of a button. Works great. I've also found a YouTube video for making your own buttons!  Search for recycled buttons.  I'm going to try making some of those!

 

You can ink the edges of your strip before or after the rosette is done. I like inking it afterwards, and I can also ink some of the folds.

Add some glitter to your edges if you want to.  I love the look!

You can scallop the edge of the strip before you do the folds. The top left rosette has scalloped edges. I used my decorative scallop scissors. I'm experimenting also, on cutting scalloped strips using my Cricut. There are also rosette strips you can cut using Cricut (not sure which cartridges) that are scalloped or have decorative and punched edges.

You can also punch the edge of your strip before folding, with little holes, or use an edge punch to make it really decorative!

HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS and have fun making your paper rosettes!  Let me know if you have any questions.