How to Make Rolled Paper Flowers with Cricut

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Are you a Cricut beginner looking for an easy paper flower project? In this easy, step-by-step tutorial, I’ll show you how to make gorgeous rolled paper flowers with a Cricut cutting machine.

What’s better than fresh cut flowers? How about cutting them yourself with a Cricut? In this post, I’ve put together some great tips and tricks on how to make these beautiful Cricut flowers at home.

Paper flowers are the perfect way to add color and life to any room. Plus, they won’t wilt or fade over time like real flowers would – making them ideal decorations for weddings, birthdays, baby showers, and more!

In this blog post, I’ll show you how to make beautiful Cricut paper flowers step-by-step. You don’t need anything fancy – just some basic crafting supplies like cardstock and glue will do the trick!

They are quick to make and easy to customize. I’ll show you how to make them in different colors and different sizes. Once you get going, you can make a whole bunch of flowers in about an hour!

New to Cricut? If you are a Cricut beginner, you may be interested in this helpful guide: What is a Cricut Machine, and What Can it Do?

Easy Cricut Paper Crafting Tutorial

If you are looking for something creative and fun to do with your Cricut machine, look no further than paper flowers. In my opinion, this is one of the best paper crafting projects for new Cricut owners.

The Cricut is a great tool, but it can be difficult to find tutorials that teach beginners how to use it. That’s why I created this free Cricut tutorial to teach you how to make paper flowers.

You don’t need any experience or special skills – just follow along with our step-by-step instructions, and you’ll have beautiful flowers in no time at all.

In this tutorial, we’ll cover everything you need to know about making paper flowers:

• which type of paper and glue to use
• what a quilling tool is, and what to use if you don’t have one
• how to assemble the flowers
• and what to do with them when you’re done

Keep reading to get started making your own paper flowers today!

And, if you want more DIY projects like this one, check out all of our other Cricut tutorials.

Supplies You’ll Need for this Project

Here are the materials and tools you’ll need to make paper flowers with Cricut

• Cardstock. I prefer to use 65 lb cardstock with a solid core. It’s sturdy but still bendable. You can also use Cricut 12×12 cardstock and other types of patterned paper.
• Cricut cutting machine. For this project, either the Cricut Maker 3 or the Cricut Explore 3 will work best.
• LightGrip cutting mat.
• Quilling tool. Cricut also makes a quilling tool that you can find in their paper tool set.
• Quick-drying craft glue or hot glue.

Best Cardstock for Paper Flowers

What kind of paper can you use? Just about any type of cardstock, as long as it’s double-sided and has a solid core. Otherwise, the cut edges will be white!

My favorite type of paper to use for these rolled paper flowers is 65 lb cardstock. It’s sturdy enough that it won’t rip, but it’s still flexible enough to make pretty flower petals. You can find suitable cardstock in 8.5″ by 11″ size sheets or 12″ by 12″ size sheets.

Click here for more tips and tricks on How to Cut Paper and Cardstock on Cricut.

Quilling Tool and Alternatives

If you’re new to paper crafting, you may be wondering: what is a quilling tool? Quilling tools are small hand tools that you can use to make paper coils quickly and easily.

Quilling tools have a metal tip with a small slot. To use the tool, insert the end of a paper strip into the slot, and turn the tool to roll up the paper. The slot holds the paper in place while you twist the tool.

If you don’t have a quilling tool available, you can substitute a thin needle tool or even a toothpick. I’ve even made my own quilling tool by using a craft knife to cut a small slot into the flat end of a wooden skewer.

Best Glue for Paper Flowers

Once you’ve finished assembling your paper flowers, you’ll use glue to secure them. When it comes to the best glue for paper flowers, you have two options:

• Quick-drying craft glue. I tend to use tacky glue for paper crafting projects. This is my preferred brand.
• Hot glue gun. Hot glue is another good option since it sets up so quickly.

Best Cricut Machines for Paper Crafting

You can use any of the three types of Cricut machines – the Cricut Explore 3, the Cricut Maker 3, or the Cricut Joy – to cut paper flowers.

That said, the Explore and Maker machines can cut larger sizes of paper flowers than the Cricut Joy. The Explore and Maker can cut up to 12” in width, while the Joy can cut up to 5.5” in width.

So, if you want to make the largest paper flowers, you’ll want to use either the Cricut Explore or the Cricut Maker.

For a full breakdown of the different Cricut models and everything they can do, check out this post: What is a Cricut Machine, and What Can it Do?

Steps to Make Paper Flowers with a Cricut Machine

Now that we’ve talked about all the materials and tools you’ll need to make paper flowers, let’s talk about the project instructions.

In brief, here are the three easy steps to making rolled paper flowers with Cricut

1. Set up the cut file in Cricut Design Space.
2. Use the Cricut cutting machine to cut out the flower shapes
3. Use a quilling tool to roll the paper flowers and secure them with glue.

Let’s go through each of these steps in more detail.

Step 1: Set Up the Cut File in Design Space

How to Find the Flowers in Design Space

The 3D flowers I will be showing you today are available in Cricut Design Space. If you want to follow along with me, you can search for the paper flower design by its ID number: #M3D7E1

Note: If you don’t already have Cricut Design Space, you can download it for free. You can use the program on Mac, Windows, iOS (iPhone or iPad), and Android devices.

You can find other cool SVG cut files in Cricut Design Space. There are several Image Sets with rolled paper flowers. Here are a few to look at:

• The image set named “Flower Shoppe”, which is available with a Cricut Access membership. This image set contains 50 images with all sorts of flower styles, including paper roses.
• “Elegant 3D Flowers”, which has 10 images with several rolled flowers.
• “Close To My Heart – Art Philosophy” is a huge image set with over 450 images, including several rolled flowers. These are some of my favorite flowers because they have different size petals.

Note: If you have a legacy Cricut model, you should still be able to find these flower templates in the Flower Shoppe Cartridge.

Cricut Paper Flowers Size Guide

After you’ve selected the Cricut paper flower image you want to make, add it to your Design Space Canvas. Then, resize the flower template to be as large as you need for your project.

What size flower should you make?

You can resize the image file to make small flowers or larger flowers. In general, I’ve found that the finished flowers will be about 25% as wide as the spiral shapes. So, an 8” wide spiral template will give you a 2” wide finished flower.

Here is a chart that will tell you what size template to cut to make your desired size of flower.

Template Size	Flower Size
12 in	3 in
10 in	2.5 in
8 in	2 in
6 in	1.5 in
4 in	1 in

Step 2: Cut the Flower Shapes with Cricut

The next step is to cut out the shapes with your Cricut cutting machine.

1. Place the cardstock onto your LightGrip cutting mat, and load the mat into the machine.
2. Back in Design Space, click the “Make it” button to send the cut file to your Cricut machine.
3. On the next screen, select Cardstock as your base material. Double-check that your Fine-point cutting blade is loaded into the machine.
4. Back on your machine, press the flashing button to start the cut. When the cut is finished, unload the mat. Carefully remove the cut cardstock from the mat.

It’s okay if your paper curls up a little, since you’ll be rolling it up anyway. But, if you find that your paper is ripping or curling too much, here’s a tip: Turn the mat over, face-down, on a clean work surface. Carefully peel the mat up from the cut paper. This method should help the paper stay nice and flat.

Step 3: Assemble the Paper Flowers

Now, we’ll use the paper quilling tool to roll up the paper flowers from the cut-out templates.

Insert the end of the paper flower cut-out into the slotted tip of the quilling tool. (Start from the outer petals on the outer edge of the spiral shape, not the circle base in the center.)

Hold the paper cut-out in your left hand. Use your right hand to turn the quilling tool toward you (counter-clockwise).

Keep slight tension on the paper as you roll up the flower. Try to keep the bottom edge of the rolled flower aligned. (As you get to the end of the paper, it will get a bit harder to roll. Roll more slowly, and try to keep the bottom edge of the flower lined up.)

When you get the circle base at the middle of the spiral, stop rolling. Gently pinch the flower between your thumb and fingers, and slide the quilling tool out of the center of the flower.

Let the paper flower relax – just a little bit! You don’t want it to unroll completely. Add a small dab of glue to the circle part at the end of the cut-out. Fold the center section down onto the bottom of the flower. Hold the flower together for a few moments to let the glue set.

How to Make Paper Flowers without a Cricut

If you don’t have a Cricut machine yet, don’t worry. You can still do this project – it will just take a little more time.

To cut paper flowers without a Cricut, you can use scissors or an X-acto knife to cut out the template. After that, the process is the same: Use a quilling tool to roll up the flowers and secure them with a small dot of glue.

Craft Projects to Make with Paper Flowers

Now that you’ve made a whole garden’s worth of paper flowers, what are you going to make with them? Luckily, there are plenty of pretty projects to make with Cricut paper flowers. Here are just a few of my favorite ideas:

• shadow boxes
• gift bow topper
• party headband
• cake topper
• greeting card

More Cricut Projects and Tutorials

If you love crafting with Cricut, you may be interested in these related articles:

• How to Etch Glass with Armour Etch and Cricut
• How to Make a Stencil with Cricut
• How to Make Shirts with Cricut Iron-On Vinyl
• How to Make Stickers with Cricut “Print then Cut”

What’s Next?

Pin this post: Save this tutorial to your Pinterest boards so that you can come back to it later.

Leave a comment: We love to hear your feedback. Tell me in the comments below!

Share on Instagram or Facebook: When you make this project, share it on social media and tag me @sarahmaker. We love to see what you make!

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