How to Make a Paper Flower Shadow Box with Cricut for Any Size Frame - Beginner-Friendly Tutorial

Hello everyone .

Jennifer Maker .

Here it is a beautiful day to stop and smell the roses , paper roses .

That is so one of the very first things that I ever made with my cricket cutting machine was a paper flower .

I fell in love with them and I began to design paper flowers myself .

I picked a rose from my bush outside my house , pulled off all the pedals and traced them one at a time to use them as a template in my design software .

I wanted my rose to be as realistic as possible , aren't they just so pretty ?

So from there , I was hooked and since then I've made all kinds of paper flowers .

I even wrote a book about paper flowers .

One of the most popular paper flower projects can be made with just a few supplies .

Really ?

It's super simple but oh , so beautiful .

So come with me to my craft table and I will show you how to do it , show you everything we need and we'll make it together .

So aren't these paper flower shadow boxes just so pretty ?

I just love shadow boxes especially when they're packed with roses like these , these remind me of those beautiful high end boxes of roses .

They're just so beautiful , but there's one big difference .

The real ones are really , really pricey selling anywhere from $100 upward to more than $1000 .

Can you even imagine these paper flower shadow boxes are just as stunning in my opinion .

But oh , so much less expensive .

So here's everything that you need to make one of your own .

Now , the first we need a shadow box .

Of course , the one I'm using is 10 by 10 inches , but you can really use any size you want .

And I'm sharing our really handy cheat sheet with this tutorial that will show you exactly how many roses you need for a variety of different shadow box sizes .

Now you'll also need some good quality card stock .

I recommend £65 card stock that is solid core , not white core , solid core means it's the same color through and through .

If the packaging doesn't say what color the core is , just turn the paper on its side and check to see if it appears to be the same color or if it looks white , if it's the same color like this one , it's solid core .

You'll also want a cooling tool to wrap your flowers and a dowel to shape the petals along with a hot glue gun .

I cut my paper roses on a cricket cutting machine and I'll show you how to do that too in this tutorial .

And for that , you'll want a machine mat and a brayer and your fine point blade .

Of course .

And if you're going to add a sentiment to your shadow box as I did , you'll want some permanent vinyl transfer tape and a leading tool .

Now , I've included some beautiful hand letter designs that I'll think you'll love putting on your shadow boxes too .

So let me show you where to get those free and then we'll make our own paper flower shadow box together .

Step one , get my free paper flower shadow box designed .

Go to jennifer maker dot com slash 369 and look for libraries in the red bar at the top and then either click , get a password if you don't yet have one or click , enter the library , you can find the designs by searching the page for design number 369 and then click it to download a zip file with SVG files for cutting on a cricket or another cutting machine .

DXF files and principal PDF S for cutting by hand .

I'm gonna show you how to cut these designs on a cricket cutting machine .

First upload the SPG cut file to cricket design space .

If you're not sure how to do this , go to Jennifer maker dot com slash SVGS to learn how my design file includes some hand lettered quotes that you can apply to the glass of your shadow box frame as well as my popular paper rose design , which I will be using in this tutorial step two size your paper flowers .

One of the most popular questions I get from crafters is how many paper flowers should I make to fill my shadow box frame ?

I totally get it .

But I'm going to walk you through my foolproof method for determining the number of paper flowers that you need to make to fill any size shadow box .

So to do this , I'm going to start by cutting and assembling one paper rose .

After you've uploaded my paper Rowse design and cricket design .

Space .

Click make it .

If you're going to use a maker three or explore three machine , you'll be asked if you want to cut on mat or off a mat .

Select on mat on their preview screen over on the left , change the paper size to 8.5 by 11 , which is the size of the card stock that I'm using for this project and then click continue for your material , select medium card stack , £80 and for pressure , I always like to select a little bit more pressure to get a nice clean cut place a piece of card stock on a blue light grip machine mat .

You can also use a green standard grip machine mat .

Now load your fine point blade into clamp B , load your machine mat into your cricket and press the load button and then press the go button when it begins to flash after your paper rose has finished cutting , press the load , unload button to remove the mat and then to remove the card stock from your mat , flip your mat over onto your work surface and slightly bend the mat back to release the card stock .

This helps prevent the paper from curling .

Now , using a paper cooling tool place the outside end of the paper rose into the cooling tool and begin rolling the cooling tools so that the paper Rowse winds around it until you get to the end .

Now just pull the rolled paper rose off the cooling tool to remove it .

Now add hot glue to the bottom of the rolled paper flower and then place the circle piece on top of the hot glue to avoid burning your fingers .

I highly recommend wearing hot glue finger protectors .

You can manipulate the pedals by spreading them out .

You can also use a small wooden dowel to curl the pedals .

If you wish , I'm using a 1/8 inch wooden dowel to curl my pedals by rolling the petals around the wooden dowel just like this .

You can also curl the petals before rolling the paper flower on the cooling tool .

Either way is fine .

Here's my pretty paper rose .

Now , I'm going to measure the width and length of my flower .

My paper rose measures 1.5 inches around .

Now get your set up box frame and open up the back , measure the height and width of the interior of the frame .

Notice that my shadow box frame has a removable interior frame .

You want to measure the height and width inside this frame .

If you also have the same thing , the interior of my frame measures 9.5 inches , both ways to determine the amount of flowers that I need from the width .

I will divide the interior measurement of the frame width which is 9.5 inches by the width of the paper rose , which is 1.5 inches .

So 9.5 divided by 1.5 equals 6.33 which I'm gonna round up to seven .

I'm going to do the same thing to , to determine the number of roses that I need for the height , divide the interior frame , height by the height of the flower .

Since the height of my rose and frame is the same as the width .

I know I will need seven .

Now just take the number of paper roses for the width and multiply it by the number of paper roses needed for the height for my frame .

I'm multiplying seven by seven which gives me 49 .

This is the number of roses that I'm going to cut for my paper flower shadow box .

I bet you didn't think you'd be doing math to make paper flowers .

If you find that your assembled paper flower looks too small or too large for the size frame that you're using .

You can resize it to change the size of the paper rose design .

Click on the design in crooked design space and then use your mouse to adjust the size by dragging the double ended arrow icon on the lower right side of the bounding box , which I often call the resize handle .

You can also type a new measurement in the tool bar at the top of the canvas under size , but make sure to keep the lock locked to maintain the aspect ratio of the design .

Now , if you're using a different size frame , I've got you covered .

Here's a look at how many paper roses you need to fill various shadow box sizes .

The wide measurement is how wide your paper rows will be .

Once you cut and assemble it , the tall measurement is the height that you need to change your paper rose design to in cricket design space .

It's important to note everyone rolls paper flowers a little differently , which I think is cool .

These quantities are estimates based on the finished width , size of the flower .

It's also important to note that the larger the flower , the taller it will be , for example , a paper rose that is eight inches tall in design space will need a shadow box frame with a height of two inches , step three , cut your paper flowers .

Now that we know how many paper flowers we need to fill the frame , let's go back to design space to cut the rest based on the size of my paper rose design .

I think I can fit two rose designs on 1 8.5 by 11 inch sheet of card stack .

So I'm going to duplicate my rose design to make sure to duplicate the paper rose design .

Just select the design and click duplicate at the top of the layers panel .

Now I'm gonna click make it to see if two roses will fit on one sheet of card stock .

And I'll click on mat on the next screen on the prepare screen over on the left , change the paper size to 8.5 by 11 on the left side of the screen , notice that the design has been moved and rotated to fit our new paper size .

So we can see that we can definitely fit two paper roses on one sheet of card stack to cut 50 flowers because I'm gonna have one extra .

I can change the number of project copies in the upper left corner from 1 to 25 right ?

Because I have two flowers , right ?

So we're just , we don't want 50 .

That would be 100 we want 25 copies .

So I'm gonna change it to 25 and then click apply .

If you look down , you'll notice the material size also changed when we clicked , apply it .

Now calls for 12 by 12 inch card stock instead of 8.5 by 11 inch card stack , which is what we're using .

If you're using 12 by 12 inch card stack , you can leave it alone .

If not , that's an easy fix .

Scroll down and click on the window under material size , then choose 8.5 by 11 inch in the drop down menu and it will apply that to all of the mats .

Isn't that cool ?

So what if you want to create an hombre effect with your paper flower shadow box ?

If you don't already know an hombre effect is the visual radiation from a light color to a dark color or vice versa .

I think it's really pretty .

So let me show you how if you recall my shadow box needs seven rows of roses from top to bottom .

Well , three doesn't divide equally into seven .

Therefore , I'm going to make the bottom three rows , a dark red , the middle two rows , a medium red and the top two rows , a lighter red .

So I'll select one of the paper rows designs and then click on the red next to basic cut in the operation section of the toolbar at the top of the canvas .

Now let's change that to medium red from the drop down material color choices , click on a different paper rose design and change the color of this rose to the darkest red from the material color choices .

You should have three rose designs with three different shades of red like mine .

Now we will duplicate each flower .

So we have enough to fill our shadow box .

We will start with the darkest rose design .

We need 21 of these .

So you can duplicate it four times and then group four flowers and duplicate the group four times to get 25 which is fine because it's always a good idea to have extra flowers in case of mistakes along the way .

Next , we will duplicate the other two shades of red .

We need 14 of each .

So we will select them by dragging a bounding box over them and then we'll duplicate them six times , which gives us seven of each shade .

Now group all of those together and duplicate once and now we have 14 of the color and now we're ready to cut our paper flowers .

If you're wondering why we did this rather than just use the project copies on the next page .

It's because we don't have the same number of each color , right ?

All right .

So you'll need seven sheets of card stock for the lightest red rose and seven sheets for the medium red rose .

And you'll need 11 sheets of the darkest red rose to cut the roses .

Follow the same steps that I walked you through earlier to cut our single paper rose , cutting all of my paper roses , took me approximately an hour and a half .

This time can depend upon your speed .

And if you have more than one mat to cut with because if you have more than one mat , you can load one up while another one is cutting and then just keep feeding mats into your cricket .

Step four , assemble the paper roses .

Now that we have all of our paper roses cut , it's time to assemble them .

Curling the paper rose petals is completely optional .

I think it makes the roses look more realistic .

I'm going to show you what my paper rose looks like when I curl all the petals before versus after rolling the flour .

So first we roll the flour and then we curl the petals .

So get your cooling tool and take the outer end of the card stock and slide it into the slot of your cooling tool .

Begin rolling your cooling tool so that your card stock winds around the tip .

When you come to the end of the strip , gently , pull the rolled card stock off the cooling tool and turn the paper rose over and add hot glue to the bottom .

Flip the round circle tab on the top of the hot glue .

Use a hot glue finger protector to avoid burning your fingers and then continue holding the hot glue until it's cooled with a small wooden dowel .

Roll the ends of the petals around the dow to give them shape .

The dow that I'm using is 1/8 of an inch and this is what my paper rose looks like .

Now , let's curl the pedals before we roll the flour just like we did before , use a wooden dowel and roll the petals over the dow to give them shape .

Once that's done , place the outside end of the paper flower onto the cooling tool and begin spinning the cooling tool to wrap the paper pedals around the tip until you get to the end .

Now on the left is the paper rose that I put together first and then shape the pedals .

On the right is the rose where I curled the petals first and then rolled the flower .

Can you see the difference ?

Which one do you like best ?

Let me know in the comments .

So decide which method you like best and then continue rolling all of your paper roses .

Step five , arrange your flowers in a shadow box .

Once all of your flowers are assembled , it's time to lay them out and glue them to the inside back of your shadow box frame , remove the back of the frame , make sure you lay the back of the frame on your work surface .

So the hook is toward the top , take the inner frame and place it on top of the frame back .

You can apply some hot glue to keep it from moving if you want .

I'm going to begin by using my hot glue gun to add three rows of the darkest red color roses at the bottom of the frame .

Now we're gonna take the medium red color roses and glue on two rows .

And finally , I'm gluing in two rows of light red roses to finish off the frame .

Here are my 49 assembled paper roses in my paper shadow box step six , add a quote or a sentiment or a name .

All right .

So here are my hand litter quotes that are included in this project free .

You can use one of these or make your own .

The quotes included in my design file are sized for the 10 by 10 inch shadow box frame and my supply list , but you can resize them to fit your frame .

I love adding a happy or encouraging quote to make paper , flower shadow boxes or a name , you know , of whoever I'm giving it to .

But of course , this step is optional for this frame .

I'm going to put the word love so I will drag love off to the right .

Select everything that I want to hide and click group and then click on the I icon next to that group and the layers panel to hide it .

Then when I'm ready , I'm gonna go ahead and click , make it since I'm using my maker three and I'm cutting with smart vinyl , I'm going to select without mat .

But if you're not using the maker three or explore three or you're just using regular vinyl on a mat , you'll want to choose on mat or you might not even see this screen .

If your vinyl is the same color on the front and the back , you can choose to apply your quote to the top of the glass or the inside of your glass .

If you apply the quote to the inside of your glass , make sure to toggle mirror to on on the prepare screen for my base material .

I'm selecting smart vinyl permanent and for pressure , I'm changing it to more now for smart vinyl , you simply load the vinyl into your machine like you would a cutting mat , make sure the backing is facing down .

If you have a cricket roll holder for smart vinyl , attach it to your machine and feed your vinyl through the guides , then click the load button and press the flashing button to start cutting when your vinyl is all done .

Remove it from the machine and weed your vinyl quote with a weeding tool .

You have to use a weeding tool .

You just remove all the excess vital that you don't want to transfer to your frame .

Then apply transfer tape to the top of your weighted design using the Taco method .

This is where I curl the transfer tape like a taco or a U shape and apply the center of the taco to the vinyl first and then I , I smooth it outward from the center .

Then use a scraper tool to transfer the vinyl to the transfer tape .

Be sure to burnish both the front and back sides before applying the vinyl .

Be sure to clean your glass , add uh some rubbing alcohol to a lynch free cloth or a coffee filter .

Uh coffee filters are lynch free .

That's why we use them , remove the glass from the frame and wipe the coffee filter or your lint free cloth on the glass to remove any residue and do this to both sides of the glass .

Place the glass back in the frame carefully and add the paper flowers and then close the frame .

Keep in mind if you're applying your quote to the inside of your frame , you'll want to apply the vinyl to your glass before putting it back in the frame .

Otherwise , turn your frame over and decide on the best placement for your quote .

Remove the backing from the vinyl and place the quote on the glass .

Use a scraper tool to transfer the vinyl to the glass and then peel off the transfer tape and this is what my finished paper flower shadow box looks like .

Isn't it gorgeous ?

I just love these .

And I know you do too .

I've seen everyone's make so many of these and I think you're going to love making these .

Now , if you have any questions about paper flowers or shadow boxes that didn't get answered here or anything craft related that I might be able to help you with , please let me know , leave your question below this video or ask over at our awesome Cricket Crafters group at Jennifer maker dot com slash cricket crafters I love to help and see you succeed to learn more about other styles of flowers that you can make .

Watch my 10 paper flowers with cricket video and to learn more about other things that you can do with paper flowers , ways to display them , watch my paper flower , wall art decor video .

And that's it for today .

This is Jennifer maker reminding you to craft a life you love .