Perennial Blooms - Acrylic Stencils for Paper Flowers

Giving gifts is a common practice done alongside giving thanks to someone. Handcrafted gifts have been thought to hold more value due to the thought and effort put into the creation of the item. Unfortunately, the time and energy required to make handcrafted gifts prevent people from doing these for many people. Thus, Perennial Blooms aims to take a tedious task and make it fun. Perennial Blooms is a book of acrylic stencils for paper that will help cut paper to mimic chosen flowers from nature!

You will need the following supplies to build the stencils

• 3 sheets of 3mm acrylic (you can choose thinner materials, but this was chosen for durability)
• 1.5 inch 3-ring binder
• paper knife (to cut paper from the stencils)
• Inkscape app

You will need the following art supplies to make the flowers. All of these are available in Shopee:

• colored paper
• bendable wire (aluminum or copper) or barbecue sticks
• optional: paint, glitter, and other materials

Find 3 sheets of acrylic with the right size. Any color will do, but clear sheets were chosen to make the color of the colored paper below visible. 3 sheets will fit five A4 acrylic stencils which we will create in this prject.

Go to National Bookstore or Shopee for the 3-ring binder and other art supplies such as fuzzy wire and shimmer paints.

Make sure that you have downloaded an updated version of the Inkscape app.

I tried making paper flower prototypes by hand first, but this took forever. You can do this if you do not have access to a laser cutter until the creation of the actual cuts, but I highly suggest you to make cut-outs directly on Inkscape and try laser cutting pieces of paper to see if the derived paper flowers assemble well and look aesthetic.

The sunflower and hibiscus prototypes were all made by hand. Although this process took longer, the latest (rightmost) prototypes turned out well as exhibited by the first and second images, and these were simply replicated in Inkscape.

The rose and petunia prototypes were directly created and measured out in Inkscape. The third image shows the rose while the fourth image shows the petunia.

For designs made entirely by hand:

Transfer their measurements into Inkscape. I transferred the design for the sunflower. Since the petals were large, I had to use another page of acrylic to be the stencil for its seeds and leaves. Luckily, I was able to fit my design for the hibiscus into one page. I urge you to try fitting all the parts of the flower into one stencil, so that you can have several pages dedicated to each flower and to cut down acrylic use as well. #savetheearth

For designs drafted in Inkscape first:

Adjust your Inkscape prototypes as well. Laser cut onto paper with a different laser cutter setting, and try assembling these prototypes and making changes as you go on.

For the petunia, I also added another medium leaf size since the prototype leaves had an unnatural big jump in the leaf sizes as seen in the third image.The final petunia design is in the fourth image. I removed one of the petals’ details because it was unnecessary since it will just be folded over on the actual flower.

Additionally, the swirled rose petals in the previous prototypes looked good from above, but appeared really weird from the side. With this, I changed the petal pattern completely. The final rose design is in the sixth image.

Run your final Inkscape files and laser cut them onto paper. The final assembled flowers will be the product from the acrylic stencils that we'll make later on. Laser cut the holes for the binder onto paper too! Through this way, you can see if the acrylic pages will fit the binder.

Here's samples of laser cutting on paper (though this was for a prototype).

You may now laser cut the files on acrylic! Here are videos of the laser cutting process and cut-out stencils.

By the way, I added engravings of the flower on the top right corner, so users can be guided on what flower each stencil produces. I suggest you add a labeling system like this to keep you or your users guided too.

I also added a cover page to the book of acrylic stencils to present it better. Feel free to do the same!

We are finally done with the project!

Once the stencils are complete, you can now make your paper flowers. Carefully glide the paper knife on top of the colored paper around the stencils. Make sure that you have a cutting board or a piece of cardboard underneath to not damage your furniture.

Here's a friend trying it out and genuinely enjoying the process!

After cutting the pieces, you may proceed straight into paper flower assembly, but you may let your creativity shine here as you paint and design the petals and leaves. Here are examples!

You may attach the petals and leaves onto the barbecue sticks as seen in the prototypes, but you can choose to bend and twist wire to create more realistic stems. I also covered it with green crepe paper to complete the look. Feel free to do the same.

With larger sheets of paper or gift wrap, you can present the paper flowers in a bouquet.

Here is a link to the tutorial I followed: https://youtube.com/shorts/o0dH5bCCfG8?si=QUnjty8FkiVZFjzd

Congratulations! Your paper flower bouquet is now complete. :D