top of page
Search
  • havingfuntrying

Make a fun July 4th Decoration from Rosettes!

Updated: Jun 15, 2020




This is a cute decoration made almost entirely from paper rosettes. You can see videos at: (part 1) https://youtu.be/SInflprExT4


You’ll need:

- 2 sheets of 12x12” scrapbook paper in red (solid or small pattern) for large rosette.

- 1 half sheet each: a red pattern (stripes are a good choice), a small blue pattern, and one more that has blue and red if you can find one. Another option is to do 3 small rosettes each of a blue and a red.

- White cardstock for circles. Can be letter size. You’ll need six 1 ¼” circles and one 2” for the rosettes and a 2 ¾” circle for the center piece (I used white vinyl that I cut with my Cricut instead).

- Lightweight cardboard cut in small squares for the back of each rosette in similar size to the circles (cereal boxes are fine or whatever you have around the house). You could use a thicker cardstock but it’s not necessary.

- Red cardstock to make a 3 ½” circle with scalloped edges (can be any edge you want, even a plain circle). You’ll put the 2 3/4” white circle with July 4th in the center. See #10 for more info.

- Star stickers for the center of the small rosettes. You could use stamps if you prefer or cut out stars to put there but stickers were pretty easy to use.

- Glue gun with several sticks, a white or clear glue (I use Alene’s tacky glue), scissors or a paper cutter, a ruler, some parchment or wax paper, a 4” piece of ribbon, and something to score your paper. It’s also helpful to have something to protect your fingers when using the glue gun. I used finger protectors but a small wooden spoon or even a popsicle stick would work.

Instructions:

1. Score 2 sheets of red every ¾” so you have vertical lines across. Turn your sheet so the lines are now horizontal and score once at 6” so you’ll have a guide to cut the sheet into two pieces. If you have a scoring board you can skip to #2.

If you don’t have the need for a score board, you can do it with things you have around the house. Take one sheet and turn over so you have the white side up. Take a ruler and measure every ¾” inch along the top edge, making tick marks on the paper. Do the same with the bottom edge. Turn the paper to the side that hasn’t been marked and measure to the 6” mark. You can either score or make a line with a pencil or pen because it won’t be seen as it’s on the back side.

Take a scoring tool if you have it or a butter or plastic knife. You want to use the smooth side so turn it over if there are ridges. Practice on scrap paper you get the hang of it. Angle your knife so that you’re only slightly pointing down to the paper. Line up your ruler with the first tick mark on the top and bottom. Put your paper on a magazine or paper pad and run your knife along the ruler using enough pressure to make a crease in the paper. Keep going along the paper until you have all the creases done. Then cut where u marked 6”. Make sure that you’re cutting against your lines and not with them.


2. You should have 4 pieces of scored paper now. Start making your folds. Fold the first one down and keep folding your paper accordion style. On your 2nd sheet, you’ll want to start with your first fold going up. What you want at the end of doing all your sheets is to have 2 with the first fold going down and 2 going up. As you’re going along, try to keep the folds as straight as possible. Once you’re happy with them, give it a good crease with your fingers.

3. Get out your regular glue and start putting them together. If you have a specific pattern with your paper, you should make sure to match them before gluing. Run a line of glue on the top of the paper that has the single fold pointing up and then put it under the paper that has the fold going down. Make sure they line up well and then hold it long enough to stick. You can use hot glue but there’s no way to move it once they’re together so you have to be very careful. Keep gluing the pieces together and you should end up with one end being down and one up so now you want to make them into a circle by gluing them the same way you did with the rest. Put aside once you’re done.

4. For the 3” small rosettes, you need to score every ½” but you won’t need the whole sheet of paper. Cut in half but look at your pattern first. If it’s just a bunch of stars or other small pattern you could probably cut it either way. If you’re using stripes, then you have to decide if you want the stripes to be like a pinwheel or if you want it to meet up in a circle. I used both ways in mine. The red with white paper was cut so that the stripes where horizontal and my other star/stripe patter was cut so that the pattern was vertical.

5. With your half sheet of paper, do your ½” score lines like you did for the larger rosette. Once you’re done, turn your sheet and measure and score every 1 ½” and cut along the line. You should end up with 2 pieces for each rosette with a total of 4 for two. You’ll glue like you did before but putting only 2 together before you join them into a circle. Do the rest of your rosettes so that you have 6 small ones done.

6. Get everything you need for the next step before you start gluing with your glue gun. You should have six 1 ¼” circles and 6 square pieces for your small rosettes and a 2” circle and square for the large rosette. Use a piece of cardboard or a paper plate under your glue gun to protect your table. I used parchment paper to glue over but it would be helpful to put some newspaper or a magazine under it.

7. Get one of your small rosettes, a circle for the top and a square for the bottom. We’re going to work on the bottom side first. Turn the folded paper circle so that the white part is on the outside. Start to gather it together to make a circle flat on the table. Use your thumbs to hold the bottom as you’re gathering together the top. Then pull it all together so there’s only a small circle in the middle. Try it a couple of times or more until you’re comfortable with it because you don’t want to let go while gluing because it will pop up and I got burned that way. If you do get burnt with a glue gun, this has good instructions so read now just in case: https://healthfully.com/treat-hot-glue-gun-burn-6058321.html

8. Make sure you have the bottom side up of your rosette. I like to put the glue on my square first but you have to be fast with getting your rosette together. You can just make sure there’s enough glue on the rosette to hold the backing on. Gather the rosette together and hold it with one hand while you get the glue gun with the other. Put glue around the middle enough to hold it together. Quickly put the square over the center and put your stick over it so you can press it and not directly on the square. You’re going to have to hold it for long enough that it will stay together so at least 2-3 minutes (test before releasing). Once it’s done, you’ll turn it over. Some glue will have gone through the center so pull away carefully. Now you’re going to apply more glue around the front center and some on the back of your circle and then put the circle in the middle, again using your stick. This won’t take as long because the rosette should already be pretty sturdy. Do the rest of your small rosettes the same way.

9. The large rosette is the same except that you have 4 pieces and is a little harder to keep together but you should have enough experience that it won’t be too bad.

10. To make the July 4th for the center piece, I used Magneto font that was on my laptop and printed it out on vinyl with my Cricut. If you don’t have one, you could design it in Word and then print it right on your cardstock. Just make sure it will fit in a 2 ¾” circle. You’d have to cut or punch your circle out after. This will fit in the larger red scalloped circle with glue if using cardstock.

11. Now that you have all the rosettes done, you can place them around the large one, alternating colors. I did one under the edge of the one beside it and the next over. You’ll have to play with it until you’re satisfied with how it looks. Make sure that you can put the July 4th piece in the middle but over the edges of your rosettes. It needs to be at the same level. I glued one down rosette first on the side that will be glued to the next one, putting some glue under the small rosette and also on top in the same section. Place it so it will stick to the large rosette and then put the next rosette edge over it to glue them together. Repeat all the way around but make sure you don’t press down until you have it where you want it because it’s hard to move once glued without damage.

Decide what is the top of your decoration and then apply the middle piece by gluing on the edges of the back and then placing over the inside edges of the small rosettes. Now you can take your star stickers and put them on the centers however you like. There’s no right or wrong way. Take a little time to clean off any strands of glue. Finally you take a small piece of ribbon and turn over the decoration making sure it will centered so that it will hang correctly for your design. Glue the bottom of the ribbon to the back of the rosette and then and glue the bottom of the other edge to the first edge, making a loop. Now hang and enjoy your decoration!


Now that you can make rosettes, you can use them in many ways. I used them to make a large decoration for my son & daughter-in-law's shower. I used 12", 6" (1 sheet of 12x12" paper), and 4" rosettes. To stabilize it after I glued the pieces together, I used a narrow rectangular piece of foam core board that I cut from a large board. You can use the small ones to decorate packages or even use as name tags for a party. Just decide what size you want and make the paper half the size. If you want bigger than 12", you can use wallpaper.



47 views0 comments
bottom of page