Flowers two ways: gift embellishments in fabric and paper

I’ve been hunting for ways to add something extra to gifts I plan to wrap soon, and I found a couple of nice ideas on YouTube. The first gift decor is a classic baby sock rose, made with tiny cotton socks, floral wire, floral tape, and paper leaves (I used green crepe paper since it has a nice texture). This will be perfect for a friend’s baby shower in a couple of weeks. It’s so easy to make, and you can find a basic tutorial here, or many other places online.

A couple of tips for making a baby sock rose – be sure not to roll the rose itself too tight; however, when you begin to wrap the bottom of the rosebud with floral tape, make as tight as you can without tearing the paper tape. Go slowly with the taping; the heat and friction from your hands will activate the adhesive in the tape and keep it well-stuck. Also, check that as you wrap the tape down the stem, the ends of the floral wire are not exposed to potentially poke your gift recipient.

The other floral embellishment is one of paper. It is a lotus shape (at least, to me), in a somewhat challenging octagonal origami pattern found here on YouTube. To the origami purist, it is not “strictly” origami, as there is one step where the paper must be cut (see octagonal step in above pic). I recommend using a double-sided paper 15cm square or larger for this figure. For the one in the photo, I used a sheet of 25cm square paper from a huge paper haul, last time I was at Sekaido, one of my favorite craft resources in Tokyo.

The lotus shape came out a bit differently from the pattern in the YouTube video, but I like it, as it curls upward a bit more than the original. I also glued a small pink bead in the center to disguise the inevitable stress hole that can form from repeated folding. I might make a matching lily pad, before I tape it to a gift.

Finally, I am still moving along with the Soul of the Sea shawl, using a Scheepjes whirl. I am now about 30% through, and you can see by the above photo that the color gradient is turning a lighter purple. Looking forward to sharing progress with you again soon.