DYI Tissue Paper Puffs/Flowers

The other day I went through my closet and pulled a bunch a stuff out. Within that collection of "stuff" I found some gift bags left over from my birthday (...in February...), with nothing inside of them but crumpled(very colorful) tissue paper.

Rather than throwing it out, I made some puffs. Or flowers. Or pufferflowers, as I like to call them. The require no care, don't make anyone sneeze, and cannot be spilled by a cat. Worry free and colorful!

 Here's how.

All you will need is some tissue paper (mine was used already, but if you wanted crisper looking ones, use new sheets). The ability to fold. Scissors. And a stapler. (And maybe some wire or pipecleaners)

*For each flower I used around 8 layers of tissue paper.

1- cut the tissue paper into even squares or rectangles (doesn't matter, just make sure all your layers are the same size. I did vary size from flower to flower, using some full sheets or cutting one sheet into 4 or 8 or whatever, just to get some variety)

2- stack them up and accordion fold them, from one side to the other.

3- take your accordion folded sheets (which should now be a very layers long rectangle) and put a staple through the middle point (just to fold them in place). **if you want stems, you should take a pipecleaner and bend it around the center.

4-optional! I cut the end into either a rounded edge or a point, just to make the petals look less squared. I liked the points the best.

5- Now, do the layer by layer FLUFF. Carefully. Just pull up each piece and ...play with it until it looks fluffed out enough to be a puff. Do both sides in the same way.




This is all really trial and error. Just play around with them until you like the way they look. You can't really do it wrong.

First put mine on a strand of yarn and hung them like garland on the railing over my stairs...but then my sister walked in and asked by I was decorating with faloufas (those scrubby things you put body wash on in the shower...). That wasn't cool, so then plan b came along. I gave them stems, put them in a vase (or actually, a glass water bottle I brought back from a Costa Rican hotel. It is filled with coffee beans, and not water), and placed them on the little corner bookshelf (one of mannnyyyy) outside of my closet.

 They fit nicely next to my framed multimedia collage ( "I am {everyday} living life at it's best" out of magazine clipping and fabric) and my decoupaged light-switch (British stamps) plate.

See! How colorful and nice! Not really a wintery fall look but...whatever. I like color. And making stuff, especially out of other random stuff. Hope you are inspired. There is a lot that can be done with a mess of tissue paper and a little imagination!