Paper Rose Wedding Bouquet and Buttonholes

Paper bouquets are not only thriftier than real flowers, they last forever and can be perfectly coordinated with your chosen colour scheme or theme! This bouquet would look fantastic made with book pages or map sheets, for example. The possibilities are endless! I learned to make them using this fantastic instructable.

The flowers are fiddly to make at first, once you have worked your way through the first few it will get a lot easier, and you will be able to work through them easily.

You will need:

As many 8-inch squares of origami paper as you want flowers, in whatever colour you choose. If you intend to use paper other than proper origami paper for your finished bouquet, I would recommend making a few with origami paper first, until you get the hang of it. Origami paper is thin and easier to work with when you are unfamiliar with the folds!
As many 4-inch squares of green origami paper as you want flowers, for the flower base.

Step 1: Make Flowers

Make as many flowers as you need using this tutorial.

You can use any paper you like, but I made mine in red, white and cream.

Step 2: Make a Bud / Base

Your rose needs to sit in its bud, or the green base of the flower.

Take a 4 inch square of paper. Fold in half diagonally in each direction and unfold (fig 1). Then fold in half horizontally each direction and unfold (fig 2).

Now, fold up two opposite corners, then the other two, and push down to make a square (fig 3). This is the square base.

On the uppermost face, with the 'open' end of the diamond facing towards you, fold the two corners into the middle to form a kite shape (fig 4). Turn over and repeat (fig 5). Now fold the top part down (fig 6).

Now, Undo the folds that you just made so that you are back to the square base. Holding onto the top part that you just folded, push the bottom tip up to form an elongated diamond. Turn over and repeat (fig 7). Holding on to the top part, you will see that you have three long points coming off (fig 8).

From this base, fold the corner of one side into the centre crease (fig 9). Fold over the next flap and repeat, then turn over and repeat again (fig 10).

Holding onto the open ends, snip the very tip off the end (fig 11).

Holding onto the corner you just snipped, you now have four flaps pointing up. Roll each in turn down around a skewer. Once this is done, glue the paper rose.