Ask Holly: Paper Irises

What can chase away the rainy day blues faster than you can say “Zephyrus can you knock it off with the wind?” (Iris, Goddess of the rainbow, was married to Zephyrus, God of the wind. I’m thinking she has had it with this weather as well). I know you’re saying “What is she thinking? An Iris craft?!”  Other than the Iris being one of my favorite flowers, it is also the flower that first brought me to Baristaville many moons ago.

So grab your supplies and lets get this party started!

This is what you will need for both the German Bearded (bottom template) and the Japanese Iris (top template):

• Card stock: Blues, purples, yellows and oranges work well for the flowers. Use green for the leaves
• Yellow  felt or pipe cleaners
• An orange marker
• Scissors
• Green pencils
• Hot glue or white craft glue

• Step one: Trace template (you can print out our template above and blow up to scale about 3″ across) onto blue paper
• Step two: Cut out flower, leaf and 1 inch strips of felt ( or 1/2″ pieces of yellow pipe cleaner)
• Step three: Color outer edges of pipe cleaner pieces with the orange marker
• Step four: Glue every other petal together  at top (only for the bottom German Iris pattern)
• Step five: Curl bottom petals under with a pencil (Pull the tops up and curl out for the Japanese Iris)
• Step six : Glue pipe cleaner pieces to the middle bottom petal and then glue on top of the pencil
• Step seven: Glue the leaf on the side of the pencil (if giving as a card write message on leaf first) and you are done!

These make fun cards, alternatives to ribbons for packages and look beautiful on top of a wine bottles, without the pencil. My latest wacky idea is to make these out of white watercolor paper and paint them with watercolors to resemble the petals. If the rain lets up, you may see my daughter and me at Presby Memorial Iris Gardens doing just that!

Now who is the Greek god of the rain and can we tell him to knock it off?

 Questions? Just Ask Holly in comments.