Paper Source Peony Wreath

Above is my completed Peony Wreath which I hung on my apartment door!!!  I love the way it turned out.  When I bought the kit, I assumed this would be really simple, like a 1, 2, 3 production where I just open the bag and follow the directions and finish in an hour.  NOT SO.  The process is pretty laborious and there is a real satisfaction when you complete it.  I'll take you through the process: 

1. Purchasing the kit and taking it home.  

2. Popping out many many flowers from all of the lovely shades of pink and white paper.  The colors are called:  Strawberry, Blush, Blossom and White.  This popping out process on its own took quite a while!

3. Take a scissors and cut the flowers in between the petals.  

4.  Use a boning tool... (what???)  Yes, a boning tool, to curl all the petals of every single flower that you popped out.  Luckily, I recently purchased a cake decorating kit from Michael's.  The kit was really focused on fondant and gum paste flowers and it came with a tool (pictured below) created fur just the purpose of curling (fondant) flower petals.  It worked perfectly.  If you didn't have one of those, you could perhaps use a thin, smooth pen or some sort of wooden dowel.  Whatever you use, however, make sure it works well.  This curling process is really the crux of the wreath-making and it's important that the flowers look fresh and don't get wrinkled or deformed in the curling process.  (I saw a  model wreath at Paper Source in another design that sort of looked like it had been "through the mill."  It made me handle the flowers and petals cautiously to make an attractive wreath).  

5.  Layer the flower cut outs over one another, using double-sided tape or glue (which you must provide) to stack them.  You will also use styrofoam sticky pads (which come in the kit) to add volume to the flowers.  See the first flower I made below!!  I added decorative flower buds to all of my flowers, but these were things I had and did not come with the kit.