In the previous article, I started showing you an easy way to create a crepe paper Rosehip branch. And the text become too long, so I decided to end it with the flowers. Now I will show you how to make the greenery, which is the other 50% of the Rosehip’s everlasting beauty.
Making the Rosehip leaves
Making a single leaf is actually one of the easiest things in the world of paper greenery. To make a single rosehip leaf you need one square piece of crepe paper – between 1” and 2” on a side. Cut it diagonally and turn one of the cut pieces upside down. See, the crepe paper triangles’ lines now look like a leaf shape.
Then glue these two pieces together along the longer side of the two triangles. Be careful to keep the leaf shape of the parts.
Cut off the unnecessary tops of the glued line on the back side and you will produce a cute little rosehip leaf.
The only “problem” here is that you will need to make a lot of these leaves – some bigger, some smaller. The smaller ones will challenge your patience, but if you persevere, the result in the end will be great.
Using toothed fabric scissors, shape the leaves as shown below. Try to make little cuts and repeat them many times to not have big triangular cuts, but lots of little ones!
Connecting the Rosehip leaf stems
When all your leaves are shaped, use thin florists wire to make the stems. I am using a 0.6mm diameter one. You can also use any very thin wire from the hardware shop, just cover it first with paper, to be easier to stick. Also this will cover the original colour of the wire, which could be an electric wire in green, red, yellow or blue.
Put glue on the folded line of the back side of the leaf.
And then glue the wire along this line and press the paper with your fingers to secure it.
Making the Rosehip leaf branch
After all your leaves have their stems, it is time to connect them all together and to create the branch.
Start with 3 leaves – one smaller and two bigger ones. Connect them together with paper string as shown.
Then connect another two (a bit bigger) in the same way. And then some new ones…
The adding is easy, just put the new leaves a bit lower than the previous ones.
Working like this and adding the bigger leaves last, you will create a very realistic rosehip leaf branch.
There is a little secret here. If you want to give your leaves the glossy look of real rosehip leaves, cover them with your PVA glue, using a brush, but no water.
Final steps
When you have a few branches and also all the flowers, it is time to connect them together.
Just add the flowers to some of the leaf branches and then connect these branches together. The more branches you have, the bushier your rosehip will be. In this way (and with longer and thicker wire pieces) you can create a whole big rosehip bush!
To finish the stem and cover the places where the branches are connected, use paper strings made from the pieces of paper which you didn’t use already. This will save you some materials and money.
And when all the bumpy areas are covered and the rosehip stem looks smooth, cover it with your green paper – the same way you’d do it with the strings.
And in the end, I will give you as s present one additional idea – with a rosehip like this you can create not only a home decoration or a bouquet, but also a wonderful floral tiara for your daughter. Or, why not for yourself?
Enjoy your craft time!
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Did you ever tried to make a paper Cactus? Not? Try this idea – it is one of my favourite articles here: Flowering crepe paper cactus
If you are passionate about paper flower making, maybe my Peony flower tutorial on Etsy will be interesting for you.
