Use Paper And Paint To DIY Stunning Lavender Decor That Looks Like The Real Deal

Crafting is more than just a way to pass the time. Studies suggest that making things with our hands has significant positive effects on our wellbeing – you feel happy, less stressed, and enhance mindfulness. It so happens that flowers also have similar benefits for our psychological health. And not just real-life blossoms, even faux flowers can spark those feel-good hormones and boost your mood. Now, imagine combining these two mental elixirs. That's what you get with DIY paper flowers that look like the real deal. One version shared by Instagrammer @cuteflowerscraft produces rather beautiful lavender blossoms using budget-friendly paper and paint and just a few minutes of fun, relaxing craft work.

If you love having flowers around your home but lack the time or patience to care for them, these paper flowers are a great alternative. You'll need several sheets of white paper, watercolors in shades of blue or purple, and hot glue. You'll also need scissors, a glue gun, a flat paintbrush, and some green floral wire, like these 22-Gauge Floral Stem Wires from Amazon.

If you're ready to decorate your home for spring on a budget using gorgeous faux lavender, first gather all the supplies you'll need. Paint a dusty lavender blue or classic purple shade on the white paper using long brush strokes. Don't worry if the paint looks slightly streaky or uneven. These little imperfections will make your lavender decor look natural. In fact, you can also paint some sheets slightly darker to create more natural-looking color variation in the finished bouquet.

Once the painted paper dries, cut it into long strips about 1 inch wide. These are what will form the lavender petals. Cut tiny snips along one edge of each of the strips without cutting all the way through. The narrow cuts should be roughly ⅛ inch thick and form what looks like fringes along the length of the strips. This step can take a while, so to quicken the process, you can combine a couple of strips or fold each in half so you're snipping more than one layer of paper with every cut.

Now use your fingers to roll the fringes into tiny coils one by one. Then wrap each strip around a floral wire at a slight angle. Apply glue at the beginning and end of each strip to secure it in place. With that, you've formed several lavender flowers, each on its own stem.

You can also add green leaves beneath the lavender petals for a more realistic look. To make the leaves, we'll follow similar steps to those we did for the petals. Paint a sheet of white paper green. Once dry, cut the paper into strips a few inches long and about 1 inch wide. Cut small fringes along one edge, then loosely coil them so they resemble leaves rather than petals. Finally, wind the strip around the stem at the point where the petals ended. To turn your paper lavender into an eye-catching decor piece, group the stems together to make a bouquet. Then place it in a beautiful vase for display on a side table.

You can try a few more things to make your decorative fake flowers seem real. For example, since flowers are rarely perfectly symmetrical in nature, go ahead and slightly bend some stems in the bouquet or pull on a few of them so they appear to be of different heights. To add a natural lavender scent without spraying the paper directly, drop a tiny sachet of dried lavender in the vase holding the faux flowers. Do this and position the vase on a console table next to the door to make your entryway smell good all day.