Paper Carnations

For the Seattle Wedding Show this past weekend we put together a great bouquet of paper flowers for the booth. You may have seen the instructions for the mini-puff ball on Monday's blog post, now we are on to flower #2: the carnation. These are incredibly easy to make and you only need 1 piece of tissue for 4 flowers! Start off with a sheet of tissue paper in the color of your choice. I am using white for my bouquet, but really the color options are endless.

Take your sheet of tissue paper (I started with a 20x30 sheet which is a pretty standard size) and fold it in half over and over until your folded piece is a little larger than the diameter of the flower you want to make. 3" diameter makes for a final flower that is very similar in size to a live carnation.


Trace a 3" circle on the folded tissue. This circle does not have to be exactly 3", I just found a mug that was pretty close to that size and used it as a guide for tracing.


Cut around the edge of the circle being sure to keep the sheets of tissue from shifting too much. You can use a binder clip to hold the sheets together to help avoid the shifting.



When you are done, you should have 32 (if you used a 20x30 sheet) equally sized circles.


Using a small inkpad (I used a ColorBox Cat's Eye Pigment Ink) apply ink to the edges of the tissue circles. Be sure to apply color all the way around the edges.


You will only need about 8 circles for each flower, so go ahead and take 8 circles and poke 2 small holes near the center through all 8 sheets. I find this is easiest to do with this tiny circle hand punch (I also use this punch for pilot holes when I'm putting brads through thicker or multiple sheets of paper). If you don't have the punch, you can poke holes with anything sharp you may have lying around.



Take a pipe cleaner and thread it through both holes leaving 1-2" on the end. Take the shorter end and twist it around the longer piece to secure the stem.



To make the flower, just grab the top layer of tissue and squeeze it together just above the base of the stem taking care not to crease the outer inked edges.


Continue this process with the next layer of tissue,


and then the next until all of the layers of tissue have been squeezed together and you have created your lovely carnation!



If you would like to make your carnation even a little more realistic, try using a pair of edging scissors (I used Fiskars' "majestic" pattern) when you are cutting out your circles.


That simple change followed by all of the same steps turns your final flower into this:


Put them all together and you've created this great little bouquet with just 2 sheets of tissue paper and 8 pipecleaners!


Stay tuned for flower#3 arriving on Friday!

Amanda