Paper Flowers

This last week during my spare moments here and there I have been trying my hand at making paper flowers. I had all the pages I cut out of that book to make the secret compartment, and I just couldn't stand to throw them away. I found some ideas online, but couldn't figure out how to make them, so I came up with my own.

Here they all are in one picture.

I made them by doing a few stitches through the center to hold the pieces in place. I left several inches of the thread to use to tie them to things. In the pictures the strings kind of look like stems. I know they look complicated, but really they were easy. Each one only took about 3 minutes to cut, piece, and stitch, once I got the hang of it. The pictures make them look flat and you can't see the detail at the centers, but you get the general idea. I think I will use these instead of buying bows. Or maybe I will figure out how to do some wire stems and put them in a vase? I don't know what to do with them yet. It has been fun anyway, and maybe at some point I will try different kinds of paper (maybe newspaper, or tissue paper, or a combo). For a gift, I was thinking it would be fun to make a mobile like this one from PotteryBarn ($38!!!)