How To: $20 DIY Paper Flower Wedding Backdrop

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I’ve developed a pattern for whenever I see something really cool online. First, I ogle. Then I obsess. Then I spend hours (and I mean hours) trying to figure out a way to replicate it at a fraction of the cost. I think it goes that way with a lot of wedding planning. So much of what you see on Pinterest and wedding blogs is stunning, but is either impossible to replicate (for lack of time or skill) or too cost prohibitive to be realistic. And while that can often be very frustrating, not being able to replicate something exactly also frees you up to be more creative in how you interpret an idea. (I mean, everyone knows the best challenge on Project Runway is the unconventional materials challenge.)

So when we had the opportunity to work with HP using their new all-in-one desktop, the Sprout by HP (which features an overhead camera that can scan 3D objects, and a touchmat that lets you move things around in real time with the power of your fingers), we wanted to use it to try and solve some of the problems that come up when you have a cool idea, but have basically zero dollars to bring it to life. Case in point: this amazing floral backdrop. As we’ve shown before, flowers, when used en masse, can make for really cool ceremony and reception backdrops. But even the cheap flowers cost money (and fake ones are always so much more expensive than you think). So armed with the HP Sprout and the help of designer Tabitha from Winston & Main, we set out to create a paper flower wedding backdrop that would as cool as the real thing in photos, but cost (almost) no money (the total for this bad boy is about $20, all in).

To start, we scanned some of the wedding industry’s more expensive flowers (cough, peonies.)

Since the Sprout makes it super easy to duplicate items and create patterns, Tabitha was able to scan a bunch of different flowers, from peonies to greenery, meaning you can copy our design exactly, or mix and match flowers for a backdrop featuring only your favorite flowers. For the complete set of flower scans, you’ll want to download our PDF here, which will look something like this:

 

Here’s what you’ll need for the rest of the tutorial:

Total Cost: Around $20, assuming you have a pair of scissors at your house.

Time To Make: 3–5 Hours, but does not need to be done all at once, and can be done way in advance of your wedding.

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Directions:

1. Download and print the PDFs on heavy cardstock. You’ll need to print forty pages of flowers to cover an approximately five-by-seven foot space (I know that probably sounds like a lot, but most pages have only one-to-three flowers on them. If you want to keep things simple, stick with a backdrop of just one kind of flower, and forgo the dantier ones, which take more time cutting.)

2. Cut out the flowers while watching bad TV. For reference, it took Tabitha about three hours to cut the flowers for this tutorial, without any help. Add a friend and you could get it done in the span of Dirty Dancing.

3. Tape flowers to wall by rolling a little piece of blue painters tape and attaching to the back of the flower (Note: This is important. Washi tape is purely decorative, so give yourself something more substantial to work with when affixing your flowers or you’ll spend the whole night picking them up. If rolling painters tape feels like too much of a hassle, double-sided tape should work just as well. Just make sure whatever you’re using won’t affect the walls of your venue.)

4. Add a piece of gold washi tape to the stem for decoration.

Final Shot

Depending on how big you go with your backdrop, this project can be time-consuming (though it’s nothing that binge-watching an afternoon of The Mindy Project can’t fix). That said, the process itself is super easy. Pro tip: if you plan on putting your flowers on a white backdrop (like a white wall or painted plywood, for example), there’s no need to be meticulous in your cutting, since the white edges aren’t going to show. If you don’t have a wall you can hang these on, steal the idea from our hanging carnation backdrop and string the flowers from a ready-made arch. And you don’t have to limit yourself to a backdrop, either. Other uses for flower scans might include:

  • Escort Cards
  • Table-settings
  • Table Numbers (Decoupage a peony on a block of wood and you’ve got a cool, minimal centerpiece.)
  • Making your office look nice (At least, that’s what I’m planning on doing with this tutorial.)

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A few extra tips from Tabitha herself:

1. Don’t be a perfectionist. Flowers are organic shapes and it’s okay if they all turn out a little different. Be lazy and cut quickly.

2. Don’t be afraid to leave some white, especially on the smaller flowers—on the berries and greens I cut out what was easy and left the rest white.

3. This will go up (and come down) in a flash if you work with a friend. The first person can roll the painters tape and stick the flowers to the wall, and the second person can follow behind adding the washi tape to the stems.

4. Washi tape should come off easily without taking the paint with it. However if you leave this up in a sunny spot for a long time (weeks, months) that might not be the case.

Bonus: For the #lazygirls in the house who like the look of this project, but don’t want to be bothered with cutting and taping (or who can’t put things on the walls in their venue), we turned this pattern into fabric (or wallpaper!) on Spoonflower. I think it would make for a killer photobooth backdrop

Are there any cost-prohibitive materials you want to use for your wedding but can’t figure a way around? let us know and we might work them into a future tutorial!

This post was sponsored by the new Sprout by HP. Thanks HP for helping make the APW mission possible!

This Modified ModCloth Blue Wedding Dress Will Knock Your Socks Off

Kate, Graduate Student & David, Patent Attorney

One sentence sum-up of the wedding vibe: An intimate afternoon celebration of love and family, with dancing, live music, games, laughter, and light.

Soundtrack for reading: “Mo’ Better Blues” by Gordon Webster


Wedding Dress: I started with this dress from ModCloth. Then I added a ball gown skirt with pockets and made sleeves from lace salvaged off the skirt. I added buttons from Bliss Buttons. I waited to do the bustle until my mom was in town so we could work on it together.

Venue and Decorations: We selected our venue with three unshakeable criteria: it had to have a lot of light, a good dance floor, and be beautiful without added decoration. The only decorating we did were the centerpieces and the mantle arrangements from the florist.

Seating Arrangements: The only room large enough to seat everyone for lunch was also the only room large enough to seat everyone for the ceremony. A number of solutions were proposed, but eventually we decided to just seat everyone at their reception tables for the ceremony. When the ceremony ended, the wedding party walked to our seats and the caterers came out with the first course.

Officiant: My dad officiated for us. Last year DC passed a regulation allowing anyone, regardless of religious affiliation or ordination, to receive a temporary officiant license.

Dancing: Swing and blues social dancing is a huge part of our lives; it’s how we met, it’s how we know most of our friends, and it brings us so much joy, so of course it was also a major part of our celebration.

The After-Party: Our wedding ended at 5pm, so David and I were back at our hotel by 5:40pm for a nap and some alone time. Our family spread the word for us that anyone not done partying could meet us at the hotel bar at 9pm, so we spent the evening there.

Favorite Thing About The Wedding

There were two moments that I felt overwhelmed with love: when everyone stood up as David and I walked in, arm-in-arm, for the ceremony and when we had the “jam.” Dance jams are a way of making someone feel special at a dance event—often to commemorate a birthday or to thank an event organizer. Everyone stands in a circle, with the honorees in the center, and as the song plays, people leave the circle to come in and dance with the persons being honored. So over the course of one song, the people in the center dance with twenty or thirty partners for just a few bars of music each. I’ve never really liked jam circles because you never know who you’ll end up dancing with, but at our wedding a friend came up to me and told me they were going to have a jam, and I couldn’t very well say no.

When it started, I realized that I was going to dance with all the people I love to dance with most, all in one song, and how could that be anything but wonderful? When I thought the song was ending, I realized that I wanted to end it with my husband, so I told my partner at the time and left her to “steal” David from the person he was with. Our photographer, bless her heart, managed to photograph both our faces as we spun, and the joy in those photographs captures exactly how it felt.