How to make Rolled Paper Flowers

Rolled Paper Flowers Tutorial

Here’s what you’ll need

• Coloured paper – I ordered this pack of 80gsm 500 assorted colour sheets from Amazon that work really well
• Cricut Machine or other vinyl cutting machine
• Light Grip Mat
• Glue – My go-to PVA is Anitas Tacky Glue
• Tweezers

Find a Rolled Paper Flower SVG File

I searched DesignBundles.net for a Rolled Paper Flower Bundle SVG as I wanted to try out  few different styles of flower. I found a listing for 25 Rolled Flower SVGs by Skipping Cricket that actually showed images of what the finished flowers looked like and provided a really nice variety of leaf shapes (some even look like succulents!)

Download your files from DesignBundles

Once you have downloaded your purchased files from DesignBundles you’ll need to ‘unzip’ the file. I extract the SVG folder from the unzipped file and drag it to my desktop so that it’s easier to find.

Upload the SVG files to Design Space

Go to Design Space, open a new project so that you have a blank canvas to work on and click on the upload option in the left hand tool bar. Upload the Rolled Flower SVG files you want to use and then highlight them and click ‘add to project’.

Sizing your flowers

Choosing the size of flower to make is a complete personal preference and depends on the project you are doing. I tested out setting my size to around just under 21cm so that the cut would take up the full width of an A4 sheet – this turned out to be larger than I had wanted and meant I wasted quite a lot of paper so I instead duplicated the SVG file on the canvas (highlight and then press duplicate in the right hand menu) and set one to be 17cm wide and the other to be around 8cm, this meant I could fit two flowers on one A4 sheet and have a small scrap of paper left over.

Organising your cut layers

Depending on your project you may want to colour co-ordinate your cut layers, I’m looking at doing a 3 colour design so I just duplicate the flowers I need 3 times and seperate them out into the right colours on my canvas so that I don’t get confused when cutting.

What weight paper to use for Rolled Paper Flowers

I’ve found that anything from 80gsm to 120gsm craft paper works perfectly fine for rolled paper flowers. Some people prefer to use a light card stock but I find that needs a bit too much prep work (pre-rolling or curling some of the sections before you roll it to prevent creases) and is hard to get it to ‘set’ to the right shape as it becomes more springy when rolled.

Which Cricut Mat to use?

Finding the right mat to use for your latest Cricut project can be really frustrating especially if your mats have become dirty and lost some of their grip. I originally tried using the pink Fabric Grip Mat for this project and it was actually too sticky and I ended up leaving half of the flower on the mat when I tried to remove it! I then tried the blue Light Grip mat and it worked fine apart from a few sections where I hadn’t fully removed bits from old projects and it meant the blade dragged across the paper and wore/wrinkled it.

How to clean an old Cricut mat

The main thing to note with this project is that you want a mat that is free from ‘debris’ – because we are cutting through pretty light weight paper, any little lumps and bumps of materials from previous projects that are lingering on your mat can make the blade miss its cut and tear the design. The easiest way I have found to remove little bits of fluff and debris from my mats is by using good old anti-bac wipes! I take an anti-bac wipe and fold it in half and then half again so that its easier to move around and start with small circular motions wiping across the mat, you don’t need to press too hard (we aren’t scraping the mat) we’re just loosening up anything that’s left on there and the moisture from the wipe helps to collect it. I work in lines across the mat so that I know I’ve got it all and then go back over any parts that might still have some bits that are really stuck. Once you’ve finished wiping you just need to leave it to air dry for 30mins or so, after that it should be back to being sticky!

Which cut setting to use

This is something that took a bit of trial and error, if you set it too high it can mean the blade drags and tears the paper, if you set it too low it might not cut all the way through and you have to go in and release each petal with a scalpel (it’s tedious, trust me!) In the end I found that the washi tape setting (you can find this by clicking ‘browse materials’ on the cut screen) with a higher cut pressure was perfect for my machine and the paper I was using.

Rolling your flowers

Once your flowers have been cut and you’ve released them from the mat (carefully) you’re ready to start rolling them! You’ll see that the shape spirals inwards to a circle at the very end/inside, this is what I call the securing circle, its what we roll towards and where we apply glue to secure the whole flower. It’s easiest to roll the flowers if you have tweezers to hold on to them with, this means you can start a nice tight roll too. Grasp the outside petal with tweezers and start to roll, you want it to be tight so that it creates the right shape, we can loosen it later.

Securing your flowers

I roll my flowers until I reach the end and then I release them so that I can adjust them to fit the securing circle, if they unroll and become too loose you can just twist them back into the right shape by hand. Once it is at the right size I hold it with one hand whilst adding the tacky glue to the securing circle with the other, give it a few seconds to go tacky and then press the rolled flower on to it, hold it for a few more seconds so that it sets and your done!

Video – How to make Rolled Paper Flowers

Inspiration

How to use your Rolled Paper Flowers

Rolled paper flowers are great fun to make and super handy to have in your crafting stash as embellishments for all kinds of projects, they are the sort of thing I can see myself making out of all different size paper scraps on a lazy Sunday in front of the TV, you never know when you might need a rolled paper daisy or rose!

Personalised Canvas Embellishment

I’ve added my finished flowers onto a blank canvas, they make a great accent/embellishment for a simple canvas that can be personalised with a quote or name. This would look stunning with a black and silver script font quote added to it – I just need to find the perfect one!