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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

How to make tissue-paper flowers

Quite a few folks asked about the big tissue-paper flowers we had hanging from the ceiling during the Bunny Bash. They were homemade, and are easy to make once you know how. Each flower takes about five to eight minutes (depending on how speedy you are). Here are the instructions and a few tips I learned along the way:

Materials for each flower:
8 sheets of 20x30” tissue paper, thin wire, scissors, fishing line

Tip: Buy 20x30” sheets of tissue paper (like the size they sell at Target or Amazon.com). DO NOT try to make these flowers with the smaller 20x20” tissue paper that most stores sell (like Walmart, Michael’s, Diddams, and Party City) or your flowers will be misshapen, lopsided, and generally crappy looking and you will think that you are terrible at crafts and doing something wrong. (And you will have to beg your poor friend Maggie to get back in the car after already wasting an hour struggling with the small paper and drive to four more stores looking for bigger tissue paper, and then you will have to pour a glass of wine to relax before starting again.)

Alrighty, stack eight sheets of 20x30” tissue paper and fold the stack accordion style into 1.5” folds. Maggie and I found that it was fun to do some flowers all in one color, some in two colors, and some in three colors. The variety looked nice once they were hanging:DSC_4502LR

Cinch the middle together with a piece of wire (a twist tie will do in a pinch) and then twist the ends of the wire to make a loop for hanging.

Cut both ends of your tissue so the edges are rounded. (Any good pair of scissors we have in this house is immediately used in the garage or to cut chalk or dirt or something else unsavory, so our scissors are all dull and we had to basically saw through the paper. Whatever... it worked.)DSC_4505LR

Gently pull each piece of tissue paper away from the center. If you pull too hard the paper will rip, but you can repair any rips with a tiny piece of scotch tape. Everything is ok, just breathe, take a sip of wine, relax, and keep going:DSC_4507LR

Another rip? Where’s that damn tape?:DSC_4513LR

It’s best to hang the flowers immediately after fluffing them, or they’ll start to settle, plus your husband will be a little cranky that massive piles of tissue paper are covering every surface in your kitchen:DSC_4512LR

Don’t they look all purdy hanging up there? I used fishing line for the hanging, by the way:DSC_4515LRDSC_5031LR_decorations

I hung them at varying heights from all the recessed lighting cans in the kitchen and also from the center bar in the outside craft tent:IMG_1496MaggieLR

Also, this is one of the rejected flowers made from the too-small tissue paper. It was completely bare on one side and I just couldn’t get it to work, so I started to crunch it up and throw it away, then realized it didn’t look half bad when smooshed together and only seen from the top. So I jammed it in an Easter basket and called it done.DSC_5022LR_decorations

So there you have it. Tissue Paper Flowers.

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SpringFling_thumb2_thumb1Post #27. A few people pointed out that even a post saying I’m not feeling well enough to post counts, which is good enough by me! So, for the record, yesterday’s “non-post” is going to be #26 and this is #27. Check out these other spring fling bloggers: And babies make four…, Another Journey, Birdie and the Queen Bee, Catherine’s Chatter, Diary of a Nouveau Soccer Mom, Dragonflies, Journey to Motherhood, Koprowski Kids, Life with L and M (julialaine.net), Love and a Little Craziness, Mindful of Mine, Moments with Maisie, No Ordinary Family, One Plus One Equals Four, Our Boy and His Cricket, Searching for Sophie, Spectacular S, Three Kids = Chaos, To Vietnam and China, We’re Here.

15 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Hi Amy, if you need them for this weekend, the only local store I found that sells the big stuff is Target (of course it was the last place I tried, argh!).

    If you've got more time, you can order the sheets online and have an awesome color selection.

    They only sell the smaller sheets at Walmart, Michael’s, Diddams, and Party City. And yes, I know this from personal experience. Argh, again.

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  3. The rejected flower in the basket was my favourite decoration! I thought it was a cupcake

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  4. FUN!!! I have been wondering how to make them...

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  5. P.S... Are you feeling better???

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  6. Sure, make me look like I wimped out for buying mine!! Hope you are feeling better.

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  7. Gorgeous!
    I love that you love wine so much. <3

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  8. Funny but the rejected one was the one I was impressed with!

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  9. Love these! Will definitely make for the next birthday party.

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  10. Those are gorgeous! So pretty and give such life to the room!

    Hope you're feeling better sweetie.

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  11. Those are so freakin' cute!!!! I totally using that idea for the girls 5th bday bash.

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  12. THANK YOU!!! :)
    Heather

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  13. Did you find the big sheets you needed at a chin? If so, where, so we can all find them easily (learn from your experience!).

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  14. Oops! I meant to type chain...not chin on my earlier post!

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  15. Hi Terri, the only chain store I could find the big sheets at was Target. They don't carry every color in the rainbow though, so if you've got a non-standard color in mind you'd have to order the sheets online.

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