Paper Flower Craze

I went to a wedding recently with a particularly creative bride. In an effort to save money as well as apply her artistic skills to the decorating, one of my good friends decided to take a unique approach to her wedding’s floral arrangements. After researching the general price range for wedding florists, this bride-to-be was stunned. Who knew that the bride’s bouquet alone could easily cost between $50 and $150 or more? According to the Bridal Association of America, the average cost of wedding flowers is nearly $700. My friend decided she needed to get creative and save money here. She constructed every bouquet of flowers at her wedding using a widely available recycled material: paper.

It is actually very simple, the process of making a flower out of paper. All you need to do is decide what type of paper you want to use, color, and how many you want to make. If you Google “paper flowers,” a wide variety of tutorials and craft instructions quickly become available for your use. Although making the amount of flowers necessary for an entire wedding might be quite time consuming, enlisting friends to help could easily cut that amount of time in half. And considering the amount of money you save, it could prove worth the time.

While paper flowers at weddings are becoming increasingly popular, the great thing about them is they can be done for any occasion. A paper flower as a gift is creatively thoughtful and low-cost! Paper flowers can also be great for decorating around the house, and you would not have to worry about watering them (please don’t water your paper flowers). Making flowers can be a fun project with friends or kids, and it allows people to consider how else to turn paper into something useful. So next time you consider throwing that piece of paper away, think instead about recycling that paper into something beautiful.

If you think of another cool use for paper flowers, let us know!

Written by: Katie Coughlan