Paper Flowers

My centerpieces will be bunches of "Mexican" paper flowers. I say "Mexican" because they are being made by 2 white girls and one Japanese girl.

Two weeks ago I invited Mel and Jenn over for some paper flower making fun! I bribed them with food and they came with chic flicks!

In just a few short hours we made 50 flowers! We took some photos that day, but my instruction photos vanished into digital camera world. But today Jenn came over and we made another 30 flowers and we filled in the instruction photos.

I buy all the supplies from the Mexican party supply store (think Michael's squished into your closet). The supplies you need for paper flowers are:
1. Crepe paper sheets (not rolls)
2. Thick floral wire
3. thin floral wire
4. Floral tape (optional)

I also use : scissors, scotch tape and pencils (for shaping).

Step one: Cut your sheets of crepe paper into 1/3 or 1/4 depending on how full you want your flowers to be.

Here is the paper cut into 1/3 of a sheet.
Step 2: Once it is cut to size, shape your sheet. Above I am rounding the sheet to make a rose.
Step 3: Unwrap the sheet and you have a long sheet of paper. I cut it in half, to then form two flowers.

Step 4: Take a pencil or pen for shaping and round one "petal" in, roll the next out, alternating how you roll the petals. Please ignore the chins.


Step 5: Make a funny face. I like to tape the edge of the paper to the wire for extra security. Then you scrunch the paper. I am making my scrunch the paper face complete with sound effects.

Mostly scrunched, see the flower?!
Still scrunching!
Step six: wrap the thin floral wire around the base of the flower and partially down the stem.

Step 7: wrap wires with floral tape.

Viola! Flowers!
This is the batch we made a few weeks ago! Funny enough, the three of us all have distinct styles and call recognize our own flowers!Here is Mel with one of her flowers (and yes that is a pound puppy on the couch).

And Jenn with one of her flowers! The running joke was that Mel's flowers were all very tight and Jenn's were all wide open. Yes it was a very giggly afternoon!


Pretty Pretty! We are getting together again on Saturday to make more flowers. We'll be doing some brighter colors: blues, pinks, reds! Once we have the 150 done, We'll separate them into complementary bunches of 8 to 10 to be placed on the tables.