Editor’s Note: Good morning. Crafting goddess Vanessa Falle is here with a fabulous paper and button flower tutorial. Enjoy. Here she is:

This time of year is so dreary and drab up in Canada’s frozen north. We’re still buried under a blanket of snow and it’s so disheartening to hear of the buds and blossoms appearing in southern regions. So, to help battle the winter blues we’ll get creative with paper and make ourselves some pretty posies to enjoy, while waiting for the real thing to appear.

This month our project also includes a very unique vintage element - a wooden bobbin salvaged from a fabric mill in the southern US. I adore all things vintage and textile related, so I’m super excited about including these treasures in our project.

Let’s get our stuff together:

- one vintage bobbin (the long, skinny kind – sometimes they’re colored, but usually they’re vintage brown bare wood),

- multiple sheets of scrapbook paper that look great together,

- a handful of pretty, small flat-backed buttons (not too heavy),

- one package of straight floral wire,

- assorted small paper flowers if you have them (optional),

- pencil, eraser & scissors (and yeah, my pencil has skulls on it… I swiped it from the kids!),

- super strong wet adhesive,

- wire cutters (please don’t even threaten to cut that floral wire with scissors!),

- pretty decorative ribbon if you want (wide, wired ribbon is fun),

- a poking tool (I actually have a tool made specifically for this job, but a darning needle works too),

Now let’s get crackin’!

- For starters, grab your scrapbook paper, pencil, eraser and scissors. Now, I’m not the greatest at free handing circles that actually look like circles, so I cheat and use various containers found in my stash of art supplies to trace.

- Cut out enough assorted circles to make 7-13 flowers, depending on how full you want your bouquet to be.

- You may choose to leave some of your circles as circles. I did. I thought it gave nice variation to the shapes. On the wrong sides (to eliminate the need for erasing) draw the shapes you want your flowers to be. Don’t be shy about lots of neat layers. Get really wild and try to come up with lots of different styles of flowers… this is the best part!

- Once you are satisfied with your assortment, lay them out in front of you. If you are adding purchased paper flowers to the layers, do that now.

- Next, grab your buttons and figure out which ones are going to go where.

- Grab your poking tool. I used mine on top of a special foam square (mouse pads are great for this job). This lets the poker go through all the layers without bending or kinking your flower.

- Poke your holes through the button holes. If it’s a four-hole button, just poke through two of the holes.

- Thread your floral wire through the holes from the front side. The first end will get inserted, leaving about 3-4″ coming out the back. The second end will go through and be super long.

- This is the stem portion and the short part. Twist around the long part to secure the flower in place.

- Trim away any excess. DON’T CUT THE LONG PART!!!

- Repeat these step for all your flowers and set aside.

- Next, cut out two leaf shapes. Hang on to your scraps, as these will be used shortly.

- Lay out a length of floral wire. Using your wet adhesive, adhere the wire to the wrong side of your leaves.

- Grab a small piece of scrap paper to lay over the top of the wire and secure with a little more adhesive. Check to make sure it’s sticking.

- Once dry, cut the wire in half.

- Starting at the top of the spool (the narrowest part), begin wrapping your flowers in place. I did this by choosing the length of the stem, wrapping the excess wire around the spool twice and twisting around the stem to secure.

- Carefully trim away excess with wire cutters NOT scissors. You’ll kill your scissors if you do this. They’ll never cut another thing. That would be sad.

- Working your way down the spool, attach the remaining flowers. Repeat for the leaves, positioning them to your liking. If you are including a fancy ribbon, go ahead and tie that on now.

And now, your bouquet of paper posies is complete.

Vintage spools can be purchased from me in my Etsy shop. Just email me, so I can set up a listing for you.

The papers used in this project are from Kenner Road.