Kusudama Flower Tutorial

Ready to make some Kusudama paper flowers?

Supplies:

Paper cutter (optional)
Scissors or small garden clippers (optional)
(5) 4 inch paper squares
Glue gun
Glue sticks
Small heavy drinking glass (more on this later)
Craft stick, pretty straw or reed diffuser
Buttons

Cut your paper into equal squares. Practice folding on scrap paper or computer printing paper.

If you are using squares that are larger than 3 inches, I suggest you use cardstock rather than regular paper once you've figured out the folds. Cardstock makes much stronger, hardier blossoms that retain their shape after a year in storage.

Now simply look at the pictures and follow the directions!

Tips and Tricks:

I usually use reed diffusers as flower stems. They're a bit more bendy than craft sticks or straws and are easier to maneuver into centerpieces (though not as bendy as wire).
Press the edge of a small, heavy glass over every fold. This will make clean, neat folds. Better folds = Much better results!
Vary the amount of blossoms. For the purposes of this tutorial, I made a five-blossom flower but three, four and six blossom flowers are also very pretty!
Vary the sizes of the blossoms. 3", 4", 6" or 12" squares!
Clip stems with a garden clippers to your desired length.
If you're extra particular about perfection, trim the tips of each blossom so that both layers of paper are even before gluing them to the stem, like so: