Free paper flower SVG files

How the petals become a flower

Two kinds of piece do the work. A loose petal has a short slit in its foot: pull one side of the slit over the other by about a third of the slit’s length, glue it, and the flat petal turns into a shallow scoop. Glue the feet of the largest petals round the edge of the base circle with their tips outwards, then each smaller size inside the last, set over the gaps. Lap the inner petals a little further and they stand up more, which closes the middle of the flower.

A round is a ring of petals joined at a hub. Curl the petals over a pencil or pinch them along the fold line cut down each one, then stack the rounds from large to small, each turned to cover the gaps in the one below. The rose is the exception: its rounds are cut into pieces of six, five, four, three, two and one petal, and each piece is glued into a cone by lapping its last petal over its first. The cones get steeper as they get smaller and sit one inside the other.

Sizes, card and glue

The files are 100 mm on their longer side, so scale them up before cutting. Each note gives the flower’s size at a cut size that fits a 12 inch mat or a sheet of A4 or Letter card. A flower made from slit petals comes out a little under twice as wide as its largest petal is tall; a stacked flower is as wide as its largest round.

Card of 160 to 220 gsm holds a curl and a scoop. Thinner paper droops, and anything over 250 gsm cracks when the slit is lapped. Coloured-core card hides the cut edges. Hot glue grabs fastest; tacky glue gives time to adjust and leaves no strings. Fold lines are cut as rows of short slits, so nothing needs scoring.

How to open the files

• Cricut Design Space: choose Upload, pick the SVG, and add it to the canvas. Set the width you want; the shape is already welded.
• Silhouette Studio: Designer Edition and above open the SVG. The free Basic Edition does not, so open the DXF instead.
• LightBurn, xTool Creative Space and Glowforge: import the SVG, then set the layer to cut, score or engrave.
• Inkscape, Illustrator and Affinity: open the SVG. It is a plain filled path, so you can recolour it, add a stroke or combine it with your own work.
• Printing or sublimation: use the PNG, which has a transparent background.

Each design page lists the file’s narrowest part at seven sizes, so you can tell whether it will survive at the size you plan to cut.

Questions