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?!