Cricut Crepe Paper Flowers

In this tutorial, I will show you how to cut crepe paper using the Cricut and how to make basic flower petals using those cutouts.

I mostly make cardstock paper flowers but once in a while, I’ve venture out and making something a little different. I do love how crepe paper is so elastic and can hold curves so well. It create a completely different aesthetic compared to cardstock.

You have to have a Cricut Maker to cut crepe paper. The reason is only the rotary blade works to cut crepe paper. It stretches too easily and requires the fabric mat so that when you’re not stretching it when removing the paper. In order to cut with the fabric mat, you need a rotary blade.

Even then, half the time, I just make an initial petal and hand-cut the rest. I know, I know, it’s cheating a bit but whatever gets the job done.

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Materials for Crepe Paper Flowers

Crepe Paper – I love Lia Griffith’s color selection for her crepe paper products. Both the extra fine crepe paper and heavy crepe paper work great for these paper flowers.

Glue – I have a few favorites for paper flower glue:

• Art Glitter Glue – All-purpose non-toxic polymer glue with a fine tip, dries fast with minimal paper warping.
• Hot Glue Gun – My favorite cordless hot glue gun, an essential for fast petal to petal gluing

Cutting Machine – I use a Cricut. Check out my recommendations for Cricut machines and accessories for beginners for more info.

Template – The templates for this crepe paper flower are available in both printable PDF and SVG formats for free in my resource library.

How to Cut Crepe Paper Using the Cricut

Use the fabric (lightest grip) mat for cutting crepe paper. Try to gently press the crepe paper onto the map so that most it is touching the mat.

If you are having a hard time keeping on the mat, you can use some painters tape or masking tap to tape down the outer most edge.

Cut on the “crepe paper” setting with added pressure. If find you need more pressure to get a better cut.

The hardest part of cutting crepe paper is figuring out how to align the template in the right way against the grain of the crepe paper.

In this example, I’ve positioned the crepe paper on the mat so that the grain are horizontal.

Give then, I want to adjust my templates on the “Make It” interface such that they are oriented in the right way given the horizontal grains.

I want the grains for the whole petal to go along the grains vertically. I want the grain to be diagonal on the half petals. This is how I orient the templates on the “Make It” mat to get that result given my positioning of the crepe paper sheet on the fabric mat.

Making Petals for Crepe Paper flowers

There are two main ways to make crepe paper flowers. The easiest is to make a single cutout piece. The second is to glue together 2 half petals. The two-piece petal allows more different ways to stretch the crepe to create more elaborate curvatures.

Starting with the basic one piece petal. I find I most frequently just stretch out the center of it so that it becomes a cup. You also have it flair out at the top or some combination of the two methods.

With the two-piece petal, you want to first cut the pieces such that the grain is on a diagonal. You want two piece that mirror each other in its diagonal grain.

Apply glue to the concave edge of one side of the petal.

Start with the bottom half of the mirrored half of the petal, press the overlapping seam together.

Let that set for a few seconds. Then align and press the top half of the two pieces. I find a polymer based glue works best for this part. You need to do some pressing with your fingers and the hot glue gun burns my fingers.

If you want to make a stamen piece for your flower, I usually just cut a half centimeter strip of crepe paper by hand and twist it.

This next park of gluing the petals together is rather subjectively. You just glue one by one starting from the center at the base of the flower. This part works better with the hot glue gun because it sets faster.

Related Article:

How to make crepe paper peonies

Cricut Rolled Paper Flowers

All Felt Paper Flowers