Pleated Paper Rosettes

You can use these pleated paper rosettes from Victoria Lavertu as pretty party decorations or to embellish a scrapbook or homemade card. Use our templates to make paper flowers and learn how easy it is to make them yourself.

Materials:

• Paper (scrapbooking paper comes in such a variety)
• Hot glue gun
• Pencil/ruler
• Double sided tape
• Scissors or a cutter
• Embroidery thread and needle (you'll see why)
• Buttons/embellishments
• Paper punch (optional)

Instructions:

1. First take some paper of your choice. Decide how big you want your rosette. I did a variety of sizes. Let's do a mid-size rosette.
    
2. Mark out your measurements on your paper. For the mid-size rosette, do 2 inch strips. You'll need 3 strips. I used the length of my scrapbook paper which is about 12".
   
   
    
3. Cut out your strips and accordion fold them like this. Be sure your folds are the same size. You can make them wide if you want your rosette's to have a lot of height or short folds for low height.
   
   
    
4. You can fold each strip separately or tape all 3 strips together and accordion fold the whole length. I did them both ways and I think it was easiest to do one whole strip instead of 3. But that's completely up to you.
    
5. If you're making your rosette's smaller. Like 1.5" strips or smaller, you can use only two strips. That's what I did for the smaller ones and they worked out fine. Now, if you folded the strips separately, tape them together using your double sided tape. You could use regular tape too. You'll have a ring of accordion paper like this.
   
   
    
6. Push down the center and you have your rosette shape.
   
   
    
7. I, personally, had issues with my rosette's staying in place. So I took some embroidery thread and pulled it through each fold.
   
   
   
   
    
8. Pull your thread tight, you have a nice tight rosette that won't pop back up. Be sure to knot your thread.
    
   
    
9. Now you can embellish! I took a scalloped circle punch and buttons and hot glued them on. You can layer your paper and buttons for a different look too. That's it. You're done. You can hang your rosettes from ribbon, stick them on the wall or add them to a favor bag. Or make some lovely paper rosette garland.