If your bridal shower went down ANYTHING like mine, you were left with PILES of tissue paper that (three years later) I'm still re-using. Offbeat Bride reader Violet has a great idea on how you can use all that colorful tissue paper as festive wedding decor. Here she is with your tissue paper flower tutorial using just three things. -Megan
What you'll need:
- tissue paper
- embroidery floss
- scissors
Step 1: Getting the right sized squares
I use full sheets of tissue paper that measure 20″X20″.
What you want to do is fold the sheet vertically and cut along the crease.
Wiffle balls + coffee filters = decor magic
My future-mother-in-law works for a coffee company and is constantly giving us giant boxes of coffee filters. So I'm putting them to good use by... Read more
Then fold in half horizontally, so that you have four separate square sheets of tissue paper.
Gather the sheets together and fold vertically and cut along the crease. Then fold horizontally and cut along the crease (repetitive I know).
You should come out with 16 square sheets. Don't worry if they are not all uniform in size — we will fix that later on.
Step 2: Folding time!
Take four of the small square sheets and fold them accordion style.
Step 3: Securing your fold together.
I use craft or embrodery string to hold together the sheets.
I use string that's going to be the same color of the center of the flower so you can't really see it.
Then fold the paper in half keeping the sting in the middle.
Step 4: Tackle the problem of all the sheets not being quite the same size.
All you do is take the folded paper and cut the ends to make them even. Then use your sissors to make a petal type shape. Be creative and play with different petals shapes.
This one I cut to look more like a normal flower petal.
This one I made more pointy.
Step 5: Lets make a flower!
First you want to spread out your accordion folds into almost a circle. No matter how many videos you look up on YouTube where they tell you that it will stretch all the way into a circle is just wrong in my opinion. I mean really, I guess it all depends on the size of your folds, but I have small fingers and could never get my folds small enough so that when I stretched it out it made a circle.
At this point go ahead and take the knot of the string and put it on the back side of your flower so it stays out of the way.
Now you can start to separate your folds. Do this one layer at a time. Don't pull too hard or you'll rip the paper and it'll look kinda bad.
AND you're done! It's not that hard really, but a lot of the videos I looked up were hard to follow or the flowers just came out wonky.
Here are a few other flowers I've done including some small ones that can be made by just folding the squares two more times and making slightly smaller squares:
On a side note I did the math on how many flowers you can get out of one package of tissue paper:
- One sheet makes 16 squares and at 30 sheets a pack you get 480 small squares.
- You use four sheets to make one flower which means you get 120 flowers out of one package of tissue paper!
- I bought two different multicolored sets of tissue paper so I should be able to make 240 flowers.
When you make the cost of the materials ($1 per pack of tissue paper, and I think I spent about a $1.50 on the embroidery string) I paid about two cents per flower! That's insane AND cheap AND easy!
We made a truckload of these for my sister’s wedding last year and discovered it was easier to use fine-gauge wire to tie them. You have to be careful not to cut into the paper with the wire, but the wire DOES make them sturdier to hang. Basically, we cut 12-18″ lengths of thin wire, folded it in half, made a 1/2-1″ loop, twisted the wire a few times below the loop, put the paper between the two wire ends, and then twisted the ends together below the paper. We folded the twisted ends up toward the loop and cut off the extra. It gave us a sturdy “handle” to hold when we fluffed up the tissue, and it was super easy to tie ribbon onto the wire loop so we could hang them as garlands across the ceiling of our reception space. You can get pre-cut lengths of floral wire at craft stores, and I recommend using actual wire cutters (like Craftsman) instead of the cheap craft wire cutters I started with… 😉
I did something very similar. I used paper from gifts to make flowers, and used 16 gauge steel wire (you can get a giant roll from Home Depot for a few bucks). I hooked the end around the center of the pleated paper and used pliers to crimp the wire into place, then left the other end long to form a stem so that the flowers could be made into a bouquet.
yup, in the midst of tissue paper flower making (my table looks like it’s a headquarters for it!) and found that the wire worked better. I’m also using floral tape to make “stems” so that the flowers stand up easier (but that’s more for my purpse than a suggestion!)
I’ve done this before for different events (namely red rose decorations for the KY Derby!!) and I’ve always used green pipe cleaner to tie them. It not only holds well, but it adds the nice effect of a stem as well! 🙂 Plus I’ve noticed that it doesn’t really cut into the tissue paper much. The only problem is if it shows through the gap. I usually color it with permanent marker and it works okay for me, though. Just another option!
This is how I made all the flowers for my wedding (except I used floral wire instead of thread)!
Excellent instructions – so much easier than most craft books or online tutorials.