Paper Carnations

With baby showers, bridal showers and weddings popping up everywhere.  I wanted to share how to make paper carnations.  They are perfect for decorations for a party or I like to use them in place of bows on presents as well.  The picture below was a heart shaped paper box I made for transporting pistachios on our Valentine's Day Walk.

Supplies

1 piece of Tissue Paper

1 Twisty Tie

1 Pair of Scissors

I've seen lots of paper flower patterns call for florist tape and wire but I like to use what I have on hand.  Next cut the paper in half, so you have two pieces.  Line those two pieces up and cut them in half, so you have 4 pieces.  Line all of those up, and cut them in half again, so you have 8 pieces total.

Next carefully accordion fold this paper.  Try to keep the folds about 1 inch wide.

Use your twisty tie to secure paper together.  Fold the ends of the twisty tie flat.

Use your scissors to round the edges.  It's ok if they aren't perfectly even.

Start opening the paper on either side of the twisty tie.  Do one layer at a time.  Carefully push the paper all the way to the twisty tie.

With each layer following the layers will open less and less.  This is ok, it helps make a really full flower.  Run a piece of ribbon underneath the twisty tie and attach to whatever you like.  Or if decorating a paper box like above, punch holes into the paper and use the twisty ties to hold it in place.

To make different sizes:  The small ones like on the heart shaped box are made with a half sheet of tissue paper.  Where the large flower is made with 2 pieces of tissue paper.  My large flower would work well on a large present box, such as a box of china.  These flowers can get ridiculously large if you're trying to decorate something such as a ceiling.  Since the key to this pattern is 8 sheets, so if you wanted to you could use eight sheets of tissue paper for gigantic flowers.  I thought about making the really big ones for a fantasy fairy tea party for little girls.  Let them dress up and pretend they are the size of Tinkerbell and surround the tea party with giant flowers.  On anything larger then the two sheets of tissue paper, I would suggest using either florist wire or gardening wire as a cheaper alternative.  The wonderful thing about these is tissue paper is really cheap compared to real carnations.  If you want different color flowers, just change the color of the tissue paper.  Though to make the flowers to scale you would need to use a quarter of a sheet of tissue paper, and probably change the folds of the paper to a 1/2 inch.  The smaller you go the more tricky it becomes.  Good Luck!

I must have flowers, always, and always.

--Claude Monet