When you’re making wafer paper flowers, you might want to vein the petals. This is one way to do it, and it gives you deep and permanent veins in the paper.
This is a simple, low effort method and it’s really easy, but it’s not the only way to do it. You can also use a method that I go over here: Tips To Vein Wafer Paper Flower Petals.
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What the petals are like using this method.
This method makes the petals dry stiff, so if you want them to be more flexible it might not be the best for your needs.
But if you’re making a flower that has deeply veined petals like a peony, it works really well.
For this flower I’m making peony petals, so they need to be large and ruffly. I used some wafer paper petals that I cut out freehand using scissors.
They don’t have to be perfect at all, peony petals are pretty irregular and all different sizes, so just go look up a picture of some peony petal gumpaste cutters so you have an idea of what you’re looking for.
You’ll need a few different sizes of petals for each flower, but this is something that you can do ahead of time and just store until it’s time to assemble the flower.
So if you want to do one size at a time then store them, that will work.
Materials to make the petals.
For the materials I used to make these petals:
- Flower petal veiners (any petal presses will work, I used peony presses because the grooves are deep on them.
- Wafer paper (AD grade works well and holds up to the moisture better than A grade.)
- Vinyl gloves
- Foam brushes
- Spray bottle
- Vodka or water (vodka works better because it evaporates quickly.
How to make the petals.
Start with the petals, a bunch of silicone veiners (I used parrot tulip veiners and a veining mat that I made so that I could do a bunch at once), a spray bottle with vodka in it, and a foam brush or rubber gloves.
I have to add that I have a spray bottle with water, and you could use that just as easily, but vodka dries faster.
My kids are also highly amused that I have a spray bottle that says “vodka” on it, but you do need to know the difference between that and the water bottle, so it’s practical!
Next, take the wafer paper petals and put them on the veining mats, being careful not to touch them to each other. If they touch, they’ll stick when they get wet.
Now spray the petals with the vodka, not too much, but you do need to get them wet. They’ll absorb the liquid so don’t soak them, just spray once then wait to see if they absorb enough to get wet all over.
If they don’t seem to be absorbing the moisture, spray them lightly again.
At this point I had been pressing the paper into the veiners with the rubber gloves, but as I was doing it this time I picked up a foam brush that was sitting there, and it turns out that it doesn’t stick to the wet wafer paper.
It worked better than using the gloves, to tell the truth. Press the brush into the veins to adhere the wafer paper to them.
Okay…Now you have a bunch of petals that are pressed into the veiners and need to dry. So go away and leave them alone. Or you can use a heat lamp to speed it up, but they’ll be fine on their own.
If you want to add some light color now, or before when you wet the petals to begin with, you can use a spray bottle with colored vodka or water, and spray the petals to give them a tint.
Go away and let the petals dry…When they’re ready they’ll peel themselves off of the silicone veiners. If they’re still stuck just be patient, they’ll get there.
In the photo below, the one on the left is ready and the one on the right is still a little wet.
How to store wafer paper petals after they dry.
When the petals are all dry, you’ll have a bunch of shaped, veined loose petals. The ones on the bottom of the photo below have the pink spray on them, see how it’s just a hint of color? Very subtle.
You can store these in an airtight container now. Just toss them in and save them until you need them. Make a few every day and store them up until you need them.
When you have a bunch of petals, you can make a wafer paper flower with them, like this article demonstrates.
