The Paris Brocante Paper Rose Tutorial

Imagine. It's 1899, holiday time in Paris. You're entertaining the most stylish and gorgeous of Montmartre society this year and everyone knows your parties impress like no other. Proud of your Bohemian heritage, you look to the flea markets for unique finds that will leave lasting impressions and add vintage beauty to your holiday table.

shabby cottage printable favor box 

Ahhh! Are you there yet? Soft, muted pinks, lacy accents and aged texts give this holiday favor box a Paris brocante look I absolutely love. Roses are always a favorite with those of us who seem to be drawn to all things made in shabby cottage style so today I'm gonna show you how to make some out of paper.

cottage style paper roses front 

You won't need to purchase any punches for this so don't worry if you don't have any. I'll provide everything you need to make the double sided paper rose shown on the favor box. First, download the paper rose templates by clicking the images and saving them to your desktop. Print page 1 on 8 1/2 by 11 inch plain white paper.

cottage style paper roses back

Print page 2 of the template on the back side of the page you just printed making sure that it prints in the same area on your page as your rose templates did. When you are finished printing, the roses on the front should align in the center of the text you printed on the back. Once you cut them out, your roses will have text on both sides.

•  Cut your flowers into pieces as indicated in the above photo

•  Roll the single petal into a cone and adhere into place

•  Slightly curl the petals of the two petal piece and roll into a loose cone by overlapping the petals

• Form your other 3 pieces into cones by adhering the petals on either side of your cuts together

• Curl petals as desired

• Insert your rolled single petal into the two petal cone

• Build your rose by inserting the smaller cones into the larger cones until your rose is formed

Now you're ready to add some distress ink to the edges of your rose and find yourself some leaves. You can use punches or just cut a leaf shape out of green paper. I purposely didn't include a leaf template to allow your wonderful imagination to come up with the perfect leaf for your project.

Le Charmed Life patterned favor box template

I used my rose to embellish this adorable little Paris brocante favor box. I made a double bow using some seam binding, added a couple of paper curls and adhered the whole shebang to the box lid. Couldn't you just eat this up?! Enjoy!

Folded Rose Tutorial

Y'all are gonna LOVE this Folded Rose Tutorial created by Ann Martin of All Things Paper. These can make the perfect addition to your paper crafts and I'm positively giddy with excitement over finding this!

folded paper rose styles

The rose on the left was created using the folded rose tutorial and looks like an English rose. The rose on the right is an example of how I've been creating my miniature roses for years. Both are beautiful.

lovely little English rose style roses

You don't have to specifically use quilling paper, for more variety, you can cut your own strips using an X-acto blade and a metal ruler. Light weight papers with color on both sides work best.

spray of traditional style roses

Valentine's Day is coming. Add some leaves punched from green paper and you can make some really nice little rose sprays for use in your paper crafts. Enjoy!

For the Pure Enjoyment of Vellum

During a photo shoot over the weekend, I happened to pull out a sheet of clear vellum from my paper stash and taped it to a window. The vellum combined with the white pattern gave the window the appearance of vintage frosted glass.

white patterned vellum taped to window

Although the original subject of my photos was the unfinished dress forms you saw posted earlier this week, I could not pass up the opportunity to shoot photos of this lovely paper rose, hat box and tag.  It was just something pretty to post today and thought you might like it too. Enjoy!

Shabby Chic Vintage Dress Form Flapper

Ta da! My first shabby chic vintage dress form doll is finally finished. What better day to show her off than the official launch date of the Paper Wardrobe Project.

Shabby Chic Vintage Dress Form

The dress form is made entirely of paper using both paper machè and decoupage techniques.

Shabby Chic Vintage Dress Form

Wire was inserted through the length to create the stand which was then painted and shaved in places for a distressed look.

Shabby Chic Vintage Dress Form

Her drop waist dress is a double layer of gathered tissue paper with some loosely twisted silk ribbon tied with a big loopy bow and embellished with a spray of paper roses.

Shabby Chic Vintage Dress Form

Vintage lace and paper roses adorn the neck with just a little bit of gathered tulle added at the shoulders to give a hint of sleeve.

Shabby Chic Vintage Dress Form

The base of the stand is embellished with a hand made arrangement of paper roses. I love this doll and already have plans for the next one.