Giant Tissue Paper Flowers: A Photo Tutorial

In preparation for my daughter's upcoming birthday party (a Pixie Hollow theme), I have been making some tissue paper flowers to be part of her decorations. Her birthday isn't until April, but I have so many things going on this spring I decided to get a giant head start. I've made about ten of them so far - they don't take long at all, the supplies are cheap, and I think they make a big impact. These are perfect for all kinds of parties - baby showers, bridal showers, birthdays, or just to spring-ify your home! I could even see these as a cute nursery/kid room decoration. Just string them on some fishing line and hang from the ceiling.

Now for the tutorial. These are my supplies: tissue paper in whatever colors you choose (I got mine in these 12 sheet packs from AC Moore for $2.99), cloth wrapped wire stem, scissors, a hot glue gun, and a pencil. That's it! You may even have everything in your craft stash already.

After I unfolded the sheets of tissue paper (keeping them all in a stack), I freehanded petal shapes with my pencil in three sizes. After cutting them out, they looked like this:

 

 



You can also see the wire stem in the photo above that I folded in half and twisted, leaving about two inches at the ends untwisted. This acts as the stem and the stamen of the flower. Starting with the smallest petal size, take one petal at a time and wrap it just below the untwisted part of the wire. In this first inner layer of petals,  I did not use any glue at all, just wrapped the petals nice and tight around the base, like so:

 

 

For the next layer of petals, I started using dabs of hot glue after every other petal or so. It is really just for added security, as the tissue paper stays nice and tight to the stem whether the glue is there or not. I didn't use it very often, mostly because I kept burning my fingers! After the medium sized petals, I did an outer layer of the large petals. Each layer consists of 4-5 of a particular size, so I used approximately 12-15 petals per flower. When I finished with all of the petals, I just bent the wire up from the bottom (like folding it in half) to stabilize the stem. This is my finished purple flower:

 

 

 

I experimented with different petal shapes, making some more angular, some more rounded, so that I would have a variety of flowers. I am going to do a little research and attempt to make some daffodils out of some really pretty yellow crepe paper I found on sale. If they turn out, I will post that tutorial here as well. Here is a shot of a grouping of some of my finished flowers. Aren't they pretty?!

 





A Very Merry Un-Birthday

My oven had been out of commission for most of this week, and I was going crazy not being able to bake anything. So, thanks to my handy father-in-law, I am now back in business as far as being able to bake goes, and the kids and I decided to make cupcakes this morning. Not that we need an excuse to bake cupcakes, but we decided they would be birthday celebration cupcakes for Auntie Kara, who has a birthday this weekend. (It also happens to be my half-birthday, how cool is that?!)

Since Kara is all the way across the country in Texas, it has to be a virtual celebration, but it's the thought that counts, right? Her "real" present is on the way, but I thought it might be fun to do a little internet shout-out for my bestie's birthday. Happy birthday, Ka!

Birthdays are kind of a big deal in our house, and we have quite a few coming up. My husband's 30th is just around the corner, and two of our kids' birthdays are in April. The little one had a big bash for his first birthday last year, so we'll just do cupcakes with family for him this year, but our big girl turns 5(!) this spring, and she has already decided on a Pixie Hollow party. So I am in full-swing planning mode already, since I like to do lots of DIY decorations and such, and I will have some fun photos and tutorials coming up soon on the blog. In the meantime, I came up with a fun free printable you can download for your own personal use. It was inspired by our impromptu "un-birthday" party today - enjoy! Click here for the link.

Valentine's Day - A Very Sweet Event

So I know I promised a post about food photography, and that is in the works for next week. I have a few treats up my sleeve that I want to photograph first, so today you are getting a Valentine's post instead. Hope you don't mind. :)

If you know me well, you know that I live for holidays and special events. When the Christmas decorations came down in the beginning of January, the Valentine's decorations started going up. I love that I can take out a few special things, repurpose some others, and have my kids make things to transform our home to reflect the season, holiday, or occasion. And when my middle child was just a baby, I started a tradition of taking Valentine's photos to give out to our family and friends in wallet sizes. For some reason, I have always enjoyed this photo shoot more than any other. I think the kids do too - but it is quite likely that the reason for that is because I usually bribe them with candy props.

 

 

 

 

 



See? A little Valentine's candy corn (yuck) can do wonders for a natural-looking smile.

 

 

 

 If it were up to me, I would take portraits of my kids at every holiday - green outfits with a gold backdrop for St. Patrick's Day, their Easter formal wear outside in the green grass, patriotic bathing suits at Fourth of July, I could go on and on. Most of the time I just content myself with getting snapshots of them doing crafts or eating special treats we make. But Valentine's Day will always be a time for me to coordinate their outfits, find the perfect backdrop, and just the right candy bribe.

 

 

With the age of digital photography, I have found that it is much more rare for me (and many others) to actually have print copies of photos. By making it a point to do this special photo shoot every year, I am ensuring that I have new pictures for framing and wallets to hand out to the people we love. There is just something about having a printed photo that is very satisfying.

 

 



So, the real point of this post is this: whether you schedule a portrait session with a photographer, set up your own at home, or just take some candid shots, make sure you get some actual prints to frame or put in an album, and make sure you get some extras to hand out. Sure, it is fun to have an online album to share on Facebook or through email, but someday you will be happy that you have that real, hard copy of your memories. After all, every day is truly a sweet event.