Camellias - Self Reflection

Week 2: Camellias

The theme I have chosen to pursue with this blog is "Blooming Intentions". I have created many paper flowers in the past, and thought this was the perfect opportunity to try making new types of flowers while focusing on their symbolism. I am choosing flowers that are associated with positive meanings, and each week I will try to focus on incorporating those intents into my daily life. For the first post, I thought it would be fitting to create camellias, which are historically symbolic of self-reflection and inner strength in Japanese culture. Throughout the last few days while making these flowers, I tried to focus on looking inward and processing the beginning of Spring semester. It has definitely been hectic but I have been able to find the fun parts that I can look forward to. 

As for making the flowers, I use a Cricut cutting machine. I sometimes design the flowers myself, but for the camellias I used a template online with a little editing. Each of the parts are shown in the image below, since I completely forgot to take a picture before assembling everything. After the machine cut the petals out of thick cardstock in both white and red, I shaded the white ones using soft pastels to create a pink ombre effect that is very common for camellias. I then created the center of the flower by wrapping pairs of petals around each other and created the foundation of petals by attaching them to a hexagonal base. 


Eventually these flowers will be attached to a stem and base, as I hope to create a bouquet of all the flowers I have made at the end. This week I was not able to completely finish this step, but I'll include a picture of the in-progress bouquet next week!


Read more about camellias:

https://the-tsubaki.com/the-history-and-symbolism-of-camellia-in-japan


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