My granddaughter Mia was getting ready to celebrate her 7th birthday. Somehow she heard about tea parties and decided that was how she wanted to celebrate. The funny thing is that neither Mia nor any of her friends drink tea and no one had ever been to a tea party.  However, that did not diminish her determination to plan the perfect tea party with her mom. (I helped a little too.)  Mia's birthday tea party turned out great and I will write more about that another day. Today I want to tell you about how much fun Mia and I had making large paper flowers for her very girly tea party.  Somewhere Mia saw pictures of large flowers and decided they would make a special decoration for her 7th birthday party.  Making them is easy and fun. All you need is tissue paper and pipe cleaners. Mia needed a little help, but did much of the work herself.

 

First, decide on the colors you want your flowers to be. Then take six sheets of tissue paper and lay it flat. Then begin to fold the tissue paper accordion style.

When the papers have been folded accordion style, fold the long strip of paper in half and tie in the middle with a pipe cleaner.

 

Then trim the edges on each end of the paper strip. Different cuts will make different flowers. This paper was cut to have a scalloped edge. (I actually trimmed the edges. Mia demonstrated for the camera.)

 

Working on one half of the paper, begin to pull the pieces of paper apart, creating  the large petals.

 

Half of the flower in the front is complete. Now begin to work on the second half.  Pull the papers apart as you did for the first half and arrange them to make a large flower.

 

Here is Mia holding the flower she just made. A round dowel was inserted through the pipe cleaner to make a bouquet-like arrangement to place in a vase. Purple and pink flowers are in the background. Mia was very happy with the outcome. Later we made different flowers by trimming the ends with a spike-like shape. Some flowers were placed in vases and some were hung from the ceiling. Mia was right. The large paper flowers were the perfect decoration. All the girls loved them.