Learn how to make this amazing but simple DIY floral number for birthday and anniversary decoration. A beautiful crafts idea and excellent events decoration with crepe paper flowers.
Easy to make DIY floral number for birthday and anniversary decoration, with crepe paper flowers. You will also learn some new skills ( if you didn’t had them ), so you can also create many other decorations in the future. All you need is a little patience and creativity. Thanks to this number decorations, I’ve always had happy clients every time I had an order.
Making A Floral Number With Crepe Paper Flowers
1. Supplies
- Polystyrene
- Thin cardboard
- Glitter foam sheets
- Glitter ( same color as the foam )
- Regular and zig zag scissors
- Custom made tool for flowers
- Water based paint
- Crepe paper
- Decorative rhinestones
- Satin ribbon
- Silicone glue and white glue
- Ruler and cutter
- Thread and needle
- Pin needles
- Foam Cutter
2. Cutting The Polystyrene Number
For me this is the easiest part to be honest. Trace the shape of the number you need, on a big piece of paper. Then transfer the number from the paper on the polystyrene piece. Using a hot wire foam cutter, cut out the number shape. You can either build a foam cutter, or buy one. At the same time, prepare a rectangular base from polystyrene, where you will place the number. Then cut an identical number from thin cardboard and glue it on the front side using white glue as shown in the video tutorial.
3. Painting The Number Decoration
This step it’s optional if you want to do it first or last. It all depends on your preferences. The idea is to paint the back of the number, as it’s a lot easier than using the cardboard or the foam material used to decorate the sides. Usually I pick a color that will match the front side. Many times I simply used black matte paint. Make sure it’s water based paint and not thinner based, as that will melt the polystyrene.
4. The Decorating Strips
To cover the sides of the number decorations, I prefer sparkling foam. Use zig zag scissors to make the decorative cut on one side of the strip. The idea it’s to also cover at least half of the flowers and hide the face of the number where we glue the flowers. With this in mind, depending on the thickness of the polystyrene you are using, you will calculate the strips. The polystyrene I used was 4 centimeters thick, and the decorative side strips I prepared were 5.5 centimeters.
Just as in the video, all you have to do it’s to glue them on the side of the number using white or silicone glue. To temporarily attach the foam to the number until the glue will dry, use pin needles to keep it in place. Of course later on when the glue dried, you will remove these. In the spaces between the strips, put some white glue and sprinkle glitter on top to hide the joint between the strips. If you don’t have any glitter available, or glitter in the same color as the foam, just scrape some glitter from some leftover sparkling foam.
5. Making Crepe Paper Flowers
First prepare the crepe paper strips you will use to create the flowers. For this you will have to cut the crepe paper in 4 centimeters width strips. Once you have a bunch of them prepared you are ready to start creating the flowers. It would be hard to explain the way I’m folding the paper, so I would recommend you to watch the video for this part. This method will give a beautiful looking flower. The flower will also be two faced, rose in one side, or carnation on the other side.
To make the flowers easier, make a tool just as I did. Take a piece of wood and drill a small hole to hold the tip of a barbecue stick. Slice about 5 – 6 centimeters of the end of a barbecue stick, and use some electrical tape to prevent it from slicing too much in time. Place the end of the paper strip with the folded side on top and start rotating the stick until you have the flower. Make sure you have the back of the paper on the inside of the flower.
Make the flower as big as you need. I’m trying to create all the flowers in different sizes as this makes the decoration look a lot better. Use white glue to fix the end of the paper strip and finish the flowers. When you have enough flowers to cover the entire face of the number, you are ready for the next step.
6. Decorating The Floral Number
Use white glue and add it on small portions of the number. Then glue the flowers playing with the size of the flowers until you cover the entire surface of the number decoration. Make sure you put them close and tight between them so you avoid the ugly blank space between the flowers. When you finished covering the entire surface, let them dry and meanwhile we will prepare the rest of the decorations.
Since by now the side strips are dry and you removed the pin needles, we will start decorating the sides depending on your preferences. I used small rhinestones and fixed them with silicone glue. Of course you can skip this step if you like, of you can use any other decorations.
7. Preparing The Base Of The Floral Number
Now we will put to use the rectangular piece of polystyrene we cut at the beginning. Usually I’m covering it with the same sparkling foam and colors as the sides of the number. But that depends as well on your preferences. The easiest way is to glue the side strips and then the top part. I usually leave this one a little bigger, and once the glue dried, I’m cutting the excess parts using a cutter.
For this step, you can also decide to decorate the base as you wish. A satin ribbon and a double color bow tie look really great. I hope you can get an idea on how to make this from the video. I had to speed up the video so I don’t end up with a 30 minutes video. But if you can’t understand then just let me know and I will make another video for this at slow speed.
8. Finishing The Floral Number Decoration
Before placing the number on it’s base, ad a bow tie decoration to the number. To fix the number to the base, you can use barbecue sticks. Usually I have about 4 centimeters of the stick into the base, and about 10 centimeters inside the number. Carefully place it on the base and stick them together. If you want to reinforce it and make sure they will not come apart, you can also use some glue between them. Do you like making events decorations ? Have a look at this cute unicorn decoration that I make very often for birthday parties. Little girls just love it.