If anything, the past year has drilled down the importance of maintaining a happy, healthy environment. With most of us under lockdown, this meant bringing a bit of color and sunshine inside our homes, be it artificially or not. For many, flower bouquets have become a lock-down must. Gardening has also become a growing trend in many homes.
But for some, maintaining a small garden or even remembering to change the dirty water collected in the flower vase is too great of a hassle. For these people especially the next interior trend comes in handy. We’re talking, of course, of decorative paper flowers – made to last a lifetime.
For fashion designer/painter turned crafter, Christine Ciovarta, paper flowers are much more than a passing interior trend—they’re an artful homage to nature itself. “With every flower I make I try to capture the realistic look as good as I can,” writes Ciovarta on her website, “I feel so grateful that I can make something beautiful with my own two hands.”
A self-taught paper artist, her flowers are made of crepe paper which is painted and laminated. The process itself includes a healthy amount of research, taking note of the flowers’ shape, texture, and color before recreating them. “I study many images with them, I make sketches, mood boards and think of ways to reproduce and practice them,” explains Ciovarta. “After these steps are ready I make all the flowers, greenery, buds, and other elements necessary for my bouquet.”
The end result might at times be mistaken for a realistic flower bouquet. “My customers are always telling me stories how people always mistake my flowers with real ones, which gives me so much pride and joy,” admits the artist. Not only do they look realistic, but paper flowers also live forever, making them a sustainable way to keep your place decorated and on fleek.
