Crafts: Tissue Paper Wisteria

My sister is getting married and I wanted to create unique decor for her Bridal (wedding) shower. I found a post on pinterest for "wisteria" made out of tissue paper. It looked fun and easy to do, so I thought I would give it a try. You can find instructions on the Land of Nod blog here and on Vintage Homemaking here. The process is not that difficult but I will explain step by step how I made my wisteria decor.

Step one: Purchase various colors of tissue paper. I found it looked best when you had at least three colors on each wisteria "plant." I did mix up the colors and do a few with only two colors and even a few solid colors, but overall the ones with three colors looked the prettiest.

Step two: Take a sheet of tissue paper and starting on one side fold up the paper into long rectangles about 2" wide. (You will adjust the size of the rectangles depending on what size petal you want to make, the largest being about 2-2.5" and the smallest being about 1".

Step three; after you have folded your paper and have one very long rectangle you want to start folding the rectangle into smaller squares about 2" wide as the picture shows. You will end up with one very bulky 2" by 2" (approx) square.

Step four: cut out a hot air balloon shape from the square. This is difficult because there are so many layers but don't worry about it being a perfect shape, just be sure you have cut all the way through,  so each "balloon" is separate and no longer attached to the one beneath it.

Step five: take one balloon and twist the bottom square side together to form a little twist.

Step six: fold the twist into the center of the balloon/ round part.

 

Step seven: pinch the area where you just folded up the twist. This will help keep the twist folded into round part and form a petal.

Step eight: Using fishing line and a large needle thread your pre-made petals together. You can choose to either start with the smallest petals first and work up to the largest. Or you can start with the largest and work down. I mixed up each of my wisteria to give it a unique look.

Tips: I found it was easiest to make all the petals first before I started threading any together. I got a few paper plates and filled each with different sizes and colors of petals for easy access.

Don't throw away scraps from the larger petals. The folded part that you cut off can be used to make really tiny petals. They will be a strange shape, but since they are so tiny when you go to pinch them to create the petal they end up looking just fine.

I found the longer the wisteria the prettier it looked when hung on a large tree. It worked best to fill up about 2/3 with large petals and then go on to add medium small and tiny petals.