Tissue Paper Flower Gift Topper

I haven't made tissue flowers in a long time (click here for another post) - I didn't have a good bow or ribbon for the big box I wrapped my sissy's gift in yesterday so I quickly made 3 small flowers to tie on top.

Cut a few squares of tissue paper, for these small flowers I cut them approximately 5" square and used 9 squares. Stack on top of each other, accordion fold them, twist a short piece of thin wire around the center, trim the edges either round or pointed, then carefully separate the layers and shape like a flower. I made 3 of them, twisted them together so they looked like a bouquet, and attached to a ribbon that I wrapped around the box. Look how pretty it looks! Very inexpensive, easy, and quick to do - and it's different than a regular ol' bow.

rounding the edges...

...or cutting them into a point gives the flowers a different look.

gently pull up the layers to separate

here I've separated the layers on the left side of the wire, continue with the right side and shape.

twist the flowers together into a bouquet

one year ago: make a personalized shopping bag
two years ago: quebec chicken

Tissue Paper Flowers

I love to make tissue paper flowers to put on top of gifts instead of bows - since it's October and almost Halloween I used black, orange and black/white patterned tissue papers to decorate the top of my niece Macey's birthday present. I wrapped her present in zebra so it's a little hard to see where the bottom of the flower starts tho!

For this one I cut tissue paper into 10"x20" sheets (2 patterned, 4 black, 4 orange) and stacked them. In this picture the flower that is done was stacked 4 black on the bottom, then 2 patterned, and 4 orange on top. For the flower that is on the present above I did 2 patterned, then alternated 2 black, 2 orange, 2 black, 2 orange. Fold the stack in about 1" pleats  back and forth like making a fan, tie something tight around the middle, and either round the edges or cut them into points.

Then carefully separate the layers (do one side at a time) and gently pull them up to shape into a "flower".  In this picture I've separated one side but the other is still in the fan stage.

You can make them any size you want (up to the size of your sheet of tissue paper of course). These are also nice if you are mailing a gift, the tissue paper still looks good if it gets a little crumpled.