The Fine Art of Paper Flowers: A Guide to Making Beautiful and Lifelike Botanicals Kindle Edition

As someone who had only worked in photography for the past couple of decades, I came to this book purely for enjoyment. After an ongoing illness limited my ability to work in photography, I was hoping to find something satisfying and meditative to work on. Creating everlasting versions of the flowers that I’ve loved throughout my life was just a bonus.It’s no exaggeration that this book has changed the course of my artistic life, not to mention my life as a whole. The Fine Art of Paper Flowers is inspiring, beautiful, and full of care and precision. I want to emphasize that for people with foggy brains or limited energy, precise instructions are what make endeavors like this a possibility! These flowers and the techniques used to build them can be a jumping off point for those who are already confident. With this book, I’m getting there, even as someone who had never imagined working (confidently, or at all) in three dimensions.I’ve purchased a number of paper flower books since I began using this one. The Fine Art of Paper Flowers remains my absolute favorite for its completeness as a manual, and for Tiffanie Turner’s exceptional taste and artistry. Her highly detailed guidance steers readers away from cookie cutter, lifeless blooms. Wildness, irregularity and imperfection are an enormous part of what make cut flowers beautiful and compelling, and this book is so generous with techniques that allow you to create a wide variety of very believable flowers (and leaves, stems, pods, buds… you name it!) that never look stiff or sad. This book is just busting with gorgeousness and technical mastery that must have taken so much grit, time, and love to arrive at. I feel so fortunate to have found it.

First off, making crepe paper flowers is tedious and detailed, but there are some of us out there that enjoy torturing ourselves, if you consider torture listening to a book or podcast as you shape petals or fringe till you can’t fringe no mo…I digress. Back to the detailed part, I’m not sure there’s any better way than detailed paragraphs to explain how to make these flowers. I have at least 4 different books on making crepe paper flowers and get the most gorgeous, realistic flowers from following the detailed paragraph instructions step by step…THEN I have all these techniques in my wheelhouse to create different flowers of my own imagining or inspired by my garden. Be PATIENT and follow the instructions, it’s worth it. PS I’ve given my best creations away but here are two roses I added to my “spring whimsy” wreath

The minor thing is that as usual, Amazon damaged the book when packing it - the upper corner of the spine was split open.The bigger issue is the author herself. Let me start off by saying that this is a beautiful book and that she is an extraordinarily talented paper artist. It cannot be denied that her creations are lovely. But that is where this book ends on the good stuff.It appears as if the author was her own editor? Any real editor would never have allowed this book to be published as is. The problem starts in her preface, where there are long, run on sentences of her making sure we know just how wonderfully privileged a life she has led since birth. She comes across as someone who would believe she could be her own editor. She is not very good in this preface or her comments sprinkled throughout the book at being terribly likable - she comes across as rather elitist.As I read through the book I was given to the impression that she has spent a lot of time soaking in the lime light, expecting and getting a lot of praise. Does she deserve it for her flower creations? Absolutely, they are lovely, but she does not come across as one who accepts it gracefully, but as one who expects to be worshipped. Somewhat like that silly scene in the Fifth Element where the followers of the talk show host are telling him how "super green" he was lol. The difference here being that she actually IS very talented and an excellent artist with paper.But who knows, I could be reading her completely wrong and she just doesn't know how to write or edit what she writes to come across as the person she really is. I've never met her, so for all I know she is a wonderful, kind and humble person. She just doesn't come off that way in this book, the "tone" of the writing sorta put me off. But that is not the worst.She uses run on sentences and over complicates her instructions. Thank goodness for photos of most of the steps because to try to follow what she is saying in the instructions is very cumbersome and time consuming since you need to figure out what exactly she is trying to say due to the terrible way the instructions are just vomited out of her brain onto the paper. Not likely her fault, most excellent artists are not very good a writing down their methods... which is why I suspect there was no editor for this book, or at least not one who was very good at the job.I contemplated sending this back, but there is a lot of inspiration in the pages and, fortunately, I have the IQ and artistic talent/experience to be able to sleuth out via the pictures and careful dissection of her instructions what to do to recreate the flowers in this book (with my own artistic interpretations filling in the holes where the instructions are confusing). I have already made a few of them, so it is not impossible to do from the instructions and photos provided, just no where near what I would call a friendly crafting experience of being carefully led through the process with crystal clear instructions and clearly labeled photographic steps.So bottom line is that I can't really recommend this book as more than a beautiful thing to look at for most people since it is so poorly written/edited, somewhat off putting in the authors tone, and will cause frustration for most who are trying to recreate these flowers from her instructions. I would love to see a second edition of this book released which has been completely edited and reworked with better instructions and many more photos (clearly labeled) of the steps. That edition would get five stars.

Artistic genius. I have probably 9 paper flower books and this one is the best!!! The flowers turn out so realistic and have led me to start making other flowers not in the book on my own. Just as a heads up sometimes it take a few tries to get the flower how you want but don’t give up because it’s the practice that really gets you there. Also section on dead/wilting flowers is short but amazing. I am over here crossing my fingers that we get a second book.

When it comes to realistic paper flowers, I think this author is the most talented creator out there. I was really excited to give this craft a try and immediately got in over my head by flipping to the middle of the book and starting with a more advanced flower. I've never made a paper flower in my life, so I don't know why I thought I would instantly have a knack for it. It was a humbling experience, but my final piece (despite my misgivings along the way) came out quite nicely. I'm excited to try more.That being said, I do think the instructions could have been a lot clearer. There are a lot of complicated moves that just don't make sense the way they are written, and the photos, while beautiful don't always make things obvious. The templates for the flower parts are all grouped together, instead of with the instructions, so it would have been super helpful if they'd included page numbers on where to find the templates, rather than having to find each part in a sea of line drawings.

Libro con hermoso contenido práctico y lenguaje sencillo. Excelente!!!!. Muy recomendable para todas las que nos encanta el arte en la naturaleza.

Muito bom o livro, já estou fazendo lindas 🌷

Very quick delivery great book

Amei o livro. Recomendo!

É um livro maravilhoso, muito ilustrativo e com flores lindas. Minha amigas gostaram muito e comprei mais dois volumes para elas. Agradeçomuito a indicação . Obrigada.