Author Julia Whicker of State College never dreamed she would start a handcrafted paper flowers business. Although her parents and sister are artists, she viewed her youthful artistic efforts as “kids’ stuff” and left that behind to pursue a career in writing literary fiction.
“It’s the hardest thing you can do,” Whicker says of writing fiction. “You’re thinking on so many levels. You build the world from the ground up. It doesn’t exist before you build it.
With Everbloom Paper Flowers, on the other hand, she says, “It just flows out of me. It’s not hard the way writing is. Maybe it’s because I don’t have my ego bound up like I did with writing.”
A native of High Point, North Carolina, Whicker found early success as a writer. She graduated from The Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the University of Iowa’s prestigious two-year Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing. Whicker was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and her poetry was published in the Iowa Review. The Washington Post chose her dystopian novel “Wonderblood” as its April 2018 fantasy pick of the month.
Whicker discovered she did not enjoy turning her writing into a business or doing the social aspects, like giving public readings.
“I actually just stopped writing, although I don’t think I stopped for good. … The reason I stopped was because I wanted to retrain my brain, and the flowers were the thing I used to start doing that.
“I didn’t think I’d like it or get good at it. … I’m always intellectualizing everything, so that’s kind of the opposite of being able to sit, relax and craft. I wanted, this year, to really try to change that. So, I guess it worked.”
Whicker started Everbloom, her paper flowers business, in August 2023. “Honestly, I don’t know where I got the idea. … I must have seen a video or something because I somehow had the idea to order a book on it. I guess I saw something on Instagram but it was just a little thing that crossed my mind. Then we were having a tenth-anniversary party, so I decided I would try to make them for my party, for decorations, and I just couldn’t stop.”
She learned the techniques primarily from books and has gained enough experience to create flowers from pictures, without needing instructions. “A lot of times it’s just looking at how they do it, and figuring out how you would do it.”
It took her a month to make her first five crepe paper flowers for the party. “I interspersed them with real flowers because I wanted to make a lot and I didn’t have enough time.”
Whicker currently completes a basic flower in two to three hours, a more complicated flower in three to four hours, and a flower arrangement in one to two weeks.
“Of course, coloring them takes longer. There’s lots of different colors of paper you can order. But to get the exact right color, often you have to try to make it yourself.”
To make the flowers look more natural, Whicker darkens areas with watercolors and with powdered pastels she applies using a makeup applicator. She lightens areas of the dyed crepe paper with diluted bleach.
She creates her flowers, arrangements and “flower crown” headbands on the table in her large, sunny dining room. Clear vases hold brightly colored paper flowers for her project-in-progress while she assembles more to complete the arrangement.
“The supplies aren’t very expensive,” Whicker says. “It’s actually really cheap to start.”
A package of several rolls of the nicest German crepe paper costs about $25, and 100 green wires for stems cost $6. She uses floral tape; scissors; hot glue; Tacky Glue, which is a stickier version of Elmer’s glue; and Mod Podge, a water-based sealant.
The crepe papers are sturdy, so the flowers are not too delicate. She paints the leaves and the larger petals with Mod Podge to make them more durable and creates natural-looking curled edges by shaping them around skewers and wires.
“I don’t know what I want to make until I make it,” she says. “I don’t plan it out because then I just have to go with the colors and flower shapes that I feel. And it’s also like, which flowers do I want to learn? This time I was working on daffodils. And I like them.”
For her process, Whicker decides the colors and what she wants to make, then cuts out the pieces and colors them, if needed. She builds the center of the flower on the wire stem, then attaches the petals and leaves with glue.
She does weddings, parties and other commissions. “I want to grow. If people tell me what they want, I’ll try to do it. I’ll use the colors and the flowers that people want. It feels nice to make something that people like.
“It’s just kind of experiments, and seeing the ones that I like,” she says. “It’s so fun. You never know how it’s going to turn out.”
Learn more about Everbloom on Instagram @everbloom.paperflowers or by emailing [email protected]. T&G
