Dobro and Vita Crafts

Crepe Paper; A Sweet Ingredient in the Craft-Making Studio

In a previous post, I shared with you a post about Washi tapes and how they are useful in a craft maker’s studio. The same applies to the discovery of a craft paper I had not used before, which is called “Crepe Paper”. This material has a very lovely texture, as you can see in the image below.

You can buy crepe paper in rolls of various colors from your local arts and crafts supplies store. The sheets of crepe paper are very thin, almost translucent. The texture feels dry and soft to the hands and has a pleasant crispness to it.

Recently, in the library, I found a precious reference book, one of those books that you can only study in the library. It is titled “Encyclopedia of Crafts” by Martha Stewart. Although I was not particularly searching for crepe paper, as I had not worked with this kind of paper before, I found content related to making paper flowers with crepe paper in the book mentioned above.

After returning from the library, I bought myself some crepe paper and followed the steps. The results turned out much better than I had expected for the first experiment.

I could not believe that the carnation flowers that I made with it looked almost like real flowers. I made several more flowers of various colors. With each new creation, my skill level in forming paper flowers improved.

Now I have a lovely bunch that I use as decor in our living room. This positive experience inspired me to try using crepe paper in my main craft, resin coasters, which has been the focus of my studio practice for the last couple of months. Here is the first example of such experiments.

A stylized 3D illustration of an imaginary forest combined with outer craft materials immersed in cast resin.

Crepe paper is used as a layer in the sky and a layer on the lower portion of this piece, such as leaves and grass.

I have to admit that the little pearl-like sphere in the top right corner is a bubble that I did not plan to be included in my work. It is created by the coalescence of many tiny microbubbles as the resin was setting. Despite all my efforts to eliminate all the bubbles from my pieces, this little pearly one found its way!

Below are examples from my most recent work where I utilized pieces of crepe paper of various colors in my new coasters in the theme of butterflies and coneflowers.

In the example resin coaster here, the crepe paper in the collage is used to shape the greens and the petals of the purple flower.