Miniature daisies/chrysanthemums tutorial

Hello everyone! Out of several different projects and posts I was working on at the same time, this is the one I managed to finish first. Quite surprisingly, because I had some doll reviews I wanted to get out before anyone else and also another miniature dollhouse set I completed. I guess while I was making the rose bouquet for the dollhouse I got so frustrated I had to make something else my way... I had a bunch of cool supplies waiting in their envelopes, and this is how this project was born.

So, let's take a look at the process behind and all the necessary supplies, shall we?

As I was struggling to make roses out of glossy magazine paper printouts from the dollhouse kit, I envisioned miniature flowers made of something more delicate, more appropriate for the scale. I've seen several crafters successfully use tissue paper to make very realistic mini flowers, from snowdrops to peonies. So I ordered several different paper punches back in November and patiently waited for their arrival. I didn't get any paper specially for this project because I had some pieces saved from packaging and gift wraps. Unfortunately I don't have yellow for my favourite flowers, but I do have white, which is perfect for these flowers I keep calling "daisies", although they are probably a type of chrysanthemum. They were easy and fun to make. Judging from the timestamps on my photos, they took me less than an hour to complete, except for the varnish part, because I didn't have it at home. You can make them too! Here is how...

You will need:

- tissue paper
- scrap paper
- "flower with 8 skinny petals" paper punch
- glue (later I switched to PVA glue because it had a thinner nozzle, I'm guessing anything that glues paper will work)
- green floral wire
- yellow flocking powder for nail art (you want a dusty, not fibery texture)
- scissors
- optional: spray varnish (matte)


1. I don't know if this is the case with all paper punches, but mine wouldn't cut tissue paper, ripping it instead. I could certainly use regular office paper, but I wanted the delicate look of tissue paper for my doll flowers. I discovered that I can cheat the paper punch by inserting the tissue paper between layers of regular paper. I folded a strip of tissue paper into three, accordion style and put it into a folded piece of scrap paper like this:

2. I then punched a sufficient number of shapes to make a small bouquet, around 20 (double, or better triple the number of flowers you want). I made sure to separate the tissue paper from the scrap paper after cutting.
I also cut the floral wire into stems of the desired length. I needed a single piece of wire for the whole bunch.

3. I put a dot of glue in the centre of half of the flowers. The idea was to stack a second flower on top, making sure that petals don't overlap. That doesn't always work perfectly, as the tissue paper shapes are very delicate and can't be manoeuvred much after they touch the glue.

4. As a result, instead of nine flowers I had planned initially I ended up with eight. I had to add a third layer to some of the flowers to fill in the gaps. You can add as many as you want.

5. I put another dot of glue in the centre of each flower, trying to make it as round and neat as possible. I sprinkled flocking powder over the glue, patted it lightly and let it dry thoroughly.

6. Here are all the flowers after flocking, but before dusting the excess powder off:

7. I removed the excess flocking with a fan brush and flipped the flowers over. Then I dunked the end of each stem into glue and stuck it to the underside of the flowers.

A small dot of glue is enough to hold the weight of the flower.

8. I then stuck the stems into a roll of paper towels and let them dry.

At this point, the flowers look complete but I ran into a problem when I tried to bunch them together. They rumpled and crushed a lot before I was able to shape anything resembling a bouquet. So I figured a generous puff of spray varnish should stiffen the tissue paper enough to avoid this. The flowers look wet and goopy after spraying but they dried alright.

I don't have a picture of the process, it's pretty straightforward. I used this varnish, if you are curious.

9. The flowers are finished! I couldn't be bothered to look up and make the leaves that go with them, so I just wrapped them to hide the bare stems. I secured my bunch with elastic first...

...and then I cut a rectangle of gold tissue paper and wrapped them like regular flowers. I tied it with a piece of twine.

I could have gone a second time with the flocking powder to tidy up the centres but I'm trying to fight my perfectionism and it's not really visible at normal magnification anyway.

These flowers are perfect with 1:6th scale dolls such as my J-doll Via Appia:

Here is a short review of the supplies I ordered for this project plus a few more, with a slideshow of this tutorial at the end. I apologize for the choppiness, I didn't realise how bad it was until it was too late to re-film. All the product links are in the video description on Youtube.

I hoped you enjoyed this little craft! I know I did and I plan to make more flowers in different colours!

Until next time (^^)~

Blackkitty