Party Flowers!

Since I had a couple of requests about how to make the paper flowers, I thought I would dedicate a whole a post to them! I have to give credit to the wonderful MARTHA STEWART for these. When I was planning my wedding, I found an article about these flowers in the Martha Stewart Weddings book - they looked fairly easy, and I thought they were adorable! For my wedding, we did them all in red and yellow (my wedding colors), but for the United Way event I'm planning, we did them in red, yellow, blue and a couple in green. They are so easy to make, and I hope to see y'all make some as well!

Step 1 - you will need about 10 sheets of 20"x 30" tissue paper (you may have to order this from a wholesale place - I ordered mine from Nashville Wraps). Lay the paper out flat in a stack.

Step 2 - Make 1 1/2" accordian folds as shown below.

This is what the paper will look like when you finish making the folds.

Step 3 - Fold an 18-inch piece of floral wire in half, slip over center of tissue, and twist to secure.

Step 4 - With scissors, trim both ends of the paper into rounded or pointy ends. I did a pointy end on this flower.

Step 5 - Open up the creases so it resembles a fan.

Step 6 - Separate layers, pulling one piece of tissue paper from the center one at a time. (Make sure you are very gentle during this part - you don't want to pull too hard, or you will rip the tissue).

This is what the flower will start to resemble as you are pulling the layers up.

Step 7 - This is what the flower looks like after you have pulled all the layers up. They may have some holes, or they may not be completely rounded, so I always give mine a good shake to fluff them out.

Here is a completed flower - I have it hanging from the ceiling here. Isn't it adorable???

This is what my parents' house looked like for most of the weekend - this is only a small section of the flowers - the whole house was covered with them!

This is a big arrangement my mom and I made - we attached the flowers to some curly willow branches and stuck them in a huge vase. I think it's the cutest thing I've ever seen! I just wish we would have thought about this for my wedding! Now here are a couple of pictures from my wedding. We lined the outer edges of the tent in the yellow and red flowers, and then we filled the ceiling with white paper lanterns. I loved everything about my little southern country wedding!

Hopefully my directions weren't too complicated! I hope y'all will all make these flowers - just make sure you show me what you did with them! I'm off to decorate for our big event that is TOMORROW!!!! I am going to take lots of pictures so I can show the final result :)

Blessings, y'all!