{crafts} cupcake-papers -- carnations.

I have quite a fondness for cupcakes. I especially love the papers that the cupcakes are baked in. There are so many fun colors, shapes and patterns! I have pinned quite a few crafts that are made with cupcake-papers. I love them!

I started to make these cupcake-paper carnations as gift toppers for Mother's Day and other gifts. I will say that the directions were basic but really hard to understand. I read through the majority of the comments and they all felt the same way. After wasting several papers, I decided to break it down and share with you. This will hopefully prevent you from wasting those precious, pretty papers too. ☺

I am not claiming this as my craft. All the credit and glory goes to good ol' Martha Stewart. Feel free to use her instructions, but there are no pictures of the step-by-step process. You might get lost. ☺

Ok, lets get started! Gather the needed supplies...

They recommend to use about a dozen liners per flower. The more you use, the fluffier the flower.
{This is true. I stuck with the dozen, plus two extra papers in my example.}

1. Separate and set out liners.
{This is easy. I set aside two of my purple liners to use later on.}

2. Fold them in half.
{This step, in my opinion was unnecessary. It only mangles the papers and makes it more difficult pinch the papers to look like a carnation.}

3. Nest folded liners inside one another. (If using a variety of sizes, stack from largest to smallest.) With an awl, poke a hole in the center near the folds.
{This again is another easy step. I didn't have an awl in my arsenal of crafty things, so a bamboo skewer filled-in. It was perfect.}

4. Send the stem of a mini brass brad through the hole. Pierce an unfolded cup with the brad. Spread brad to secure. Fan out liners to create ruffles.
{I followed the first part of the step and sent the stem of the brad through my stack of punched papers. It was then, I spread the brad to secure. There was no fanning out liners to make ruffles. This step I believe is added if you had folded your papers.}

5. Rotate each folded liner about a quarter turn, and overlap each one with the next until you've formed a flower shape. Hot-glue the liners directly to a gift or ribbon.
{This is where they really started to lose me. Rotate? Overlap? Aye! As you can see by the pictures below, I started to just repeat this process: pinch, overlap, pinch. It worked much better and gave the look of a real carnation. I went through each layer and tried my best to give each one shape and definition. When I was done with all of my pinching, I put a glue dot in the center of the last two liners. I then stacked them and placed my flower "center" into them. I pushed down on the brad to secure them together. Using the glue dots for the last two papers gave the flower a more complete and polished look. I liked how it turned out much better.
I used a small amount of hot-glue to adhere my carnation to my gift. I liked the simplicity of a brown paper bag and a piece of twine. You can also take it a step further and make a leaf shape out of cardstock. It can be plain or write the recipients name on it.}
 

You did it, yay! I hope that this helped in your cupcake-paper carnation making. Have a sweet day!