Wooden Spoon & Crafts: Paper Tissue Flowers.. Halloween Inspired

I came from the store and I was so in love with all the Halloween Decorations that are out now, the colors of Orange, Purple and Black are just a great combination of colors without it being too scary/dark but yet it has a festive feel to it.

While walking around the store, I couldn't help but think of a fun craft to do. A craft that I've actually done before when I was one of four room parents assigned last year when my son was in Kindergarten. We made this craft as a nice gift to present to the Principal, the school was celebrating "Principal's Day". Since the class had 37 kids, yes 37! the room mom's split up the number of Paper Tissue flowers but of course not with these colors, it was more of pastel & primary colors :-)

With all the time spent making it, it came to a beautiful bouquet of flowers and inserted into a vase. I wish I had a picture of it to show it you on here. I just love this craft as One, the "flowers" won't die on you, and second, you don't have to water them!

I was thinking, this craft can be done most of the year to celebrate a holiday or any occassion! Ok, let's get to making these Halloween Inspired Paper Tissue Flowers:

What you'll need:
Paper Tissue (Orange, Black & Purple)
Scissors
Pipe Cleaners (any color)

Step 1:
Remove the colors that you only want to use from the pack. When I went to the store, some of them had other colors in the pack so I just separated them as you can see below:

Step 2:

Take your scissors and start cutting them in squares, about 4 inches x 5 inches:

As you can see, when I took the picture, it did not quite show the full square..oops!

Step 3:
I suggest taking about 6 square paper tissues and alternating them, like the picture below:

the second paper tissue from the right, looks like it's pink but I guess a different hue of purple, it turns out!

Step 4:
After gathering the paper tissue, stack them up with no color in order, but I suggest, like in Step 3, alternate the colors. If you want just one solid color, that's totally up to you. The outcome will still look beautiful!

Step 5:
In the picture below, after stacking them, what you want to do is fold the stack of paper tissue (short side) start to alternate the fold, over and back, about 1centimeter wide. It will start to look the a accordian once your done.

Step 5:
Once done, you will notice that the paper tissue does not get folded evenly at the ends. That's actually just fine, Don't need to worry! This is why I love this project.

Now, here's where you want to add that "rose" effect to it. You can definitely leave the ends Uncut, but for me, I love the paper tissue flowers to look like a Rose so I ended up Snipping off each side of the folded accordian.

Step 6:
Now that were done snipping off the ends, take your pipe cleaner and let it go over the folded paper tissue about 1 inch or so, then fold the pipe cleaner over to the other side, so that end will meet with the remaining of the "stem", then you want to start to twist it until it's secure.

Step 7:
You want to make sure the Pipe Cleaner is in the middle of the accordian, if it's not just adjust it. Here's the fun part!. Spread the paper tissue on both sides and slightly flatten it. You would want to take one layer from one side and lift up towards the center (see below pic). Then once one side is pulled towards the center, grab another layer from the other side and do the same thing.

Step 8:
Keep lifting up each side of the flower until you come to this:

see how beautiful it turned out!

Step 9:
It depends on how many of these you want to make, if your having fun, then I'm sure you'll be making more than just 10! I've already pre-made other colors but I just wanted you to see how it will look along with the other flowers.