Golden Poppy Flower Crafts

The flower craft tutorial below shares step-by-step instructions for making California golden poppies with pipe cleaners, felt, and embroidery floss.

This flower craft tutorial will guide you in making beautiful golden poppy crafts that resemble the stunning blossoms of California state poppies. Creating golden poppy crafts is a delightful way to celebrate California’s state flower while preserving the environment and adhering to the law. The scientific name for the Golden Poppy is Eschscholzia Californica, but it is also known as a California poppy, cup of botanical gold, or flame flower.

Golden-orange flowers, known as golden poppies, are native to the United States and Mexico. They are drought-resistant and thrive in native soil that receives plenty of sunshine. In California, these beautiful flowers can be found carpeting broad valleys, fields, roadsides, and hillsides with their vibrant orange hue.

Since wild golden poppies are protected and cannot be picked on state or public land, crafting these beautiful flowers from materials like paper, felt, or fabric allows you to appreciate their beauty without disturbing nature. This ensures they can continue to thrive in the wild, so we can all enjoy them dotting the hills and valleys with their vibrant orange blooms for years to come. You might also enjoy learning how to make flower crowns with felt flowers.

Golden Poppy Flower Crafts

These bright orange flowers symbolize resilience and joy, making them an excellent choice for decorations, gifts, or creative school projects. Golden poppy flower crafts complement a state report about California or a botany lesson. Whether you’re honoring California’s natural beauty, teaching kids about the parts of a flower, expanding your knowledge of the plant world, or simply adding a cheerful touch to your home, making golden poppy crafts is a creative and eco-friendly alternative to picking them that kids and adults of all ages can enjoy. 

I have always loved golden poppies, but picking them or taking them home is illegal in state parks, and they don’t last long in the wild. According to California Penal Code Section 384a, harming or picking Golden Poppy flowers on state and public property is illegal. You can pick them from your yard, but it’s not worth it because they quickly fall apart if you do. So, taking pictures of their beautiful orange centers and making Golden poppy crafts is a creative alternative to picking these wildflowers.

California Poppies bloom in late winter or early spring and quickly fade from meadows, foothills, and people’s yards when the heat of summer arrives. Their peak flowering period usually occurs from mid-March to May, but they often survive until early summer. While photographing them in my backyard, I devised this Golden Poppy flower craft idea. Now, I can enjoy the beauty of this simple flower displayed on table tops, shelves, and window sills year-round, and you can too! Look at these flower art projects, crafts, and painting ideas for more flower craft ideas.

HOW TO MAKE GOLDEN POPPY CRAFTS:

This golden poppy craft can be made in many colors for various purposes.

Golden Poppy Craft Supplies:

• Orange, gold, or yellow felt
• Disappearing ink fabric pen
• Ruler (optional)
• Green or light green pipe cleaners
• Embroidery floss or thread in orange and/or gold
• Scissors
• Green or orange loom bands (optional)
• Hot glue gun with glue sticks.

Golden Poppy Craft Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Gather Flower Craft Supplies:

• Collect the flower craft supplies from the list above to make golden poppy crafts.

2. Cut flower petals:

• Cut four orange felt triangles about the same size of a real California poppy petal.
  • On the felt, use a ruler (optional) and a disappearing ink pen to draw four isosceles triangles that are approximately the same size.
  • Make them with two longer sides of the same length and one shorter side.
    • The two longer sides should be approximately two to three inches long, and the shorter side should be about one to two inches long.
  • They look best if you round out the edges of the triangles, as shown in the photo below, instead of using straight lines to make them look more like the rounded petals of the Golden Poppy.
• If the corners of each orange felt triangle need more shaping to look like flower petals, use scissors to trim and round them.
• If you are making these golden poppy crafts with kids, invite your children or students to draw the triangles, cut them out, and shape each petal to make them look like golden poppy flower petals.
• Use a little water to wash off any remaining lines of disappearing ink (optional).
  • The lines disappear in a day or two if you don’t do this.
• Make sure you have four orange flower petals for each poppy craft before moving on to the next step.

3. Cut embroidery thread stamens for each poppy craft:

• Cut five to ten three-inch pieces of orange or gold embroidery thread or floss for each poppy craft to represent the flower’s stamens.

4. Gather parts for each flower:

• Gather four orange petals, one green pipe cleaner, one green or orange loom band (optional), and five to ten three-inch pieces of gold or orange embroidery thread for each flower craft.
• If you have kids or friends helping you make these simple felt flowers, you can work on several flowers at once if you prepare the parts before assembling them.

5. Gather the pieces of embroidery thread around the top of the pipe cleaner:

• As shown in the photograph below, gather the pieces of embroidery thread evenly around the top of the pipe cleaner.
• The top of the pipe cleaner will represent the pistil of the poppy flower.

6. Put one flower petal behind the thread and pipe cleaner:

• Lay one petal down on your work surface.
• As shown in the photo below, use a drop of hot glue to hold the embroidery thread stamens, the pipe cleaner pistil, and the first flower petals in place.
• Please use caution. Don’t touch the hot glue with your fingers while drying (it will burn you if you do).
• Please supervise and give guidance if children are using a hot glue gun.

7. Place the second petal on top of the first petal:

• Put another drop of hot glue towards the bottom of the first petal, put another petal on top, and gently press down. Be mindful not to touch the hot glue as you secure the second petal and the inner parts of the flower in place, as shown in the photo below.
• Don’t worry if some of the embroidery floss is sticking out of the bottom of the petals; you can trim it later.

8. Wrap the last two petals around the first two petals:

• Place the final two petals on the sides of and around the first two petals, as shown in the photo below.
• Use hot glue to secure them in place.

9. Ensure the petals and Stamens are secured in Place:

• Wrap the loom band around the bottom of the petals to secure the flower’s parts around the green pipe cleaner pistil (optional).
  • Wrap the loom bands as often as needed to make it nice and tight.
  • Gently open petals to bring loom band into position.
  • Be careful not to pull petals out.
  • The loom band should sit approximately 1/4 inch above the bottom of each petal.
• Alternatively, use more hot glue (if needed) to ensure the flower parts are secured in place without the loom band.

10. Trim excess thread:

• As shown in the photo below, use scissors to trim any embroidery thread hanging out of the bottom of the California Poppy flower craft.

12. Place Golden Poppies in a small vase and enjoy!

• Golden poppy crafts look beautiful in a vase as a centerpiece on a table top, desk, shelf, or window sill.

California State Poppy Flower Craft

I hope you enjoy making this California State Golden Poppy craft as much as I did. It’s a fun craft that can be displayed almost anywhere. A bouquet of Golden poppies also makes a lovely gift for Mother’s Day, weddings, showers, and birthdays.

These beautiful golden-orange flowers are also perfect for displaying on a spring nature table and are a great addition to a botany unit!

This post is a part of the Tour the World by Flower Blog Hop. Visit the post to see the other flower crafts made by participating bloggers.

Learn more about this flower craft’s author, photographer, and creator, Nell Regan Kartychok, and Rhythms of Play HERE!

If you enjoy crafting flowers, you might also enjoy:

• DIY Rainbow Peg Dolls for pretend play and matching games
• All Season Hand and Fingerprint Tree
• DIY Leave-In Conditioner and Detangling Spray
• DIY Rainbow Colored Blocks