Behind the Scenes: Spring Window Display Edition!
Let’s talk window displays! We know there’s a lot of excitement leading up to our iconic holiday window reveal (not to brag, but we did win Most Creative in the Downtown Window Decorating Contest this holiday season), but we have so much love for the window displays made for all of the other seasons too! And we’re here now to give you a behind-the-scenes look of our most recent spring window display–vibrant paper hollyhocks!
When it comes to window display decisions, we like to keep it focused on timely elements, which may involve florals, animals, or motifs of the season or upcoming holiday. Usually our owner Amy or one of our staff will have a creative whim and take charge coordinating the creation of the display. This spring, our retail & wholesale team member Emily (pictured above) knocked it out of the park! She created these gorgeous paper hollyhock flower strands by hand, cutting over 900 petals! So how did she do it? Read on to learn all about the creation process behind our new window display!
After the design process is finished and approved, it’s time to gather supplies! For this display, we needed:
- Crepe Paper (in a variety of colors)
- Floral Tape
- Green Wire / Fishing Wire
- Regular Tape & Hot Glue/Hot Glue Gun
- Matte White Paint / Ink Pad
- Scissors / Foam Brush / Pencil
Then it was time to make the magic happen! Emily started by tracing three different petal sizes on all the crepe paper using stencils made out of cardboard. Then using the foam brush, she alternated between using the matte white paint and the ink pad (depending on which blended better for each petal color) to create a gradient and add more depth to the petals. Once that was finished, it was time to cut them out! If you’re following along, be sure to save the paper scraps for the next part!
Using the lighter shades of crepe paper scrap, Emily cut them into triangular strips and hot glued two of them in a V-shape to each of the petals to give extra definition and imitate the lighter shade at the base of a real hollyhock flower that forms the five “nectaries” that produce the flower’s nectar.
Then using the cream colored crepe paper, she measured out rectangles of paper and rolled them up, cutting tiny strips at the top and fluffing them to create the “stamen” at the center of the flower. Then it was time to finally put the petals together to create the completed look of the hollyhock.
Assembly time! First, the stamens were glued onto the top of the green wire. Then five petals were wrapped around the same wire and secured with hot glue, or as Emily put it: “With a lot of hot glue and a little bit of hope.”
The petals were then fluffed to open them up a bit more and trimmed around the edges to make an even circular shape, and then it was time to rinse and repeat until all the flower bundles had been created!
(Here’s a bit of math for you: 5 petals per flower x about 15 flower bundles per strand x 12 strands= 900 paper petals in total!)
Once the bundles were complete, they were attached to an even longer strand of green wire using Scotch tape and then green floral tape was wrapped around the entire strand to give it a clean, even-looking stem!
All that remained was the finishing touches! Emily added some green paper leaves to fill empty space on the strands, then used fishing wire to hang them in our two big windows. She then whipped up some gorgeous watercolor butterflies (because you can just do that when you're THIS talented!) to float above the flowers and brought the feeling of spring to life! We're so proud of her and SO happy we get to share the magic with you, Missoula!
Have you seen it in person yet? Let us know what you think, and share your ideas for what we should do next!
