Can I interest anyone in early spring…? When the cold has worn out its welcome, but flowers are still seeds sleeping deep underground, grab a stick and some tissue paper and make it work! Just a few long messy strips, scrunched, scrunched, and hot glued at the ends, and huzzah! Spring has sprung, lovelies!
These tissue paper flowers have such a delicate quality and are such a beautiful way to brighten up a room naturally. As a bonus, you can find the DIY for the stem vases here – unbreakable + stackable, these are *perfect* tabletop accessories for young nature collectors and observers.
Stick these in a small pot filled with dirt (and natural flower seeds) along with our melted crayon butterflies or Piatti-inspired garden art stakes for a naturally lovely kid-made Mother’s Day or Father’s Day gift that’s sure to wow!
Hoping to plant some actual flowers this spring? It’s never too early to involve your little ones and introduce them to the joy of growing their own gardens. You can find tons of great ideas, plus tips and tricks to make the most of the season with our collection of over 50 spring gardening activities for kids.
To make tissue paper and twig flowers you’ll need:
BASIC SUPPLIES:
- Twigs
- Tissue paper in a variety of colors
- Scissors
- A Glue gun (for kids, I like using this low temp kind)
OPTIONAL SUPPLIES:
Rather than following my directions word for word, I suggest just playing around with the materials and seeing what you like! It may take a flower or two to get the hang of it and figure out what styles or color combinations you like, but it is virtually impossible to mess up. Every different wrap, fold, or experiment creates an interesting flower all its own.
How to Make Twig and Tissue Paper Flowers – DIY Flower Instructions:
Tear brightly-colored tissue paper into small strips.
Cut or tear some strips of tissue paper. The strips I cut for blooming flowers were roughly 1-2 inches wide and 5-6 inches long. To make the single petals, I cut some rough half-circle/square shapes in a couple of sizes to layer them. For the leaves, I cut out a few leaf-shaped pieces in different sizes.
Wrap the tissue paper around the top of a twig and glue.
When your glue gun is hot and ready to go, simply glue one end of your tissue paper strip to the end of your stick – then start wrapping! There is really no right way to do this – different kinds of wrapping produce a lovely variety of flowers!
Glue small tissue paper leaves to the twig stems.
Add leaves as you like! Try different shapes, sizes, and placements to add more variation to your early spring tissue paper flower bouquet.
There are so many ways to create lovely flowers, and this time of year, twigs seem to be in endless supply, so do lots of experimenting and don’t worry too much about making mistakes!
To create different types of spring blooms try these tips…
- You can bunch and scrunch the tissue paper as you go around to make a flower that looks like a Rose, Peony, or Ranunculus (one of my favorite varieties from my old home in San Diego!) Once you’ve finished twisting the paper strip around, secure it with another glue dot. Use your hands to gently fold or shape it into your desired form. Leave it as is, or layer another color (or two!) around it, for a beautiful multi-colored flower.
- For flowers with multiple small blooms running up the stems (like budding Snapdragons, Lily-of-the-Valley, or Lilacs) use the glue gun to attach small, individual petals to the twig stem. You can space them out equally, moving up the stem, or keep them closer to the top.
- To create flowers that look like Daffodils (also known as Narcissus), wrap your tissue tightly around the top of a twig, starting and finishing your wrap with a thin line of glue. Once finished, make a few vertical cuts in the tissue paper, then pull the strips apart. This creates a center stamen. Start another strip about 1-2 inches down, wrapping, then making cuts in the tissue – fold the cut pieces away from the twig, creating the opened petals.
I hope you enjoy this little spot of color and relaxing snowy day activity while we wait patiently for the real thing…it’s coming! I promise!
More Kids Garden Crafts
For more indoor (mini!) gardening, hop over to our paper straw and play dough fairy forests or Peter Rabbit Garden next for two ideas to help you create tiny spring gardens that can fit in a travel tin. Or use up extra sticks with our bunny & chick twig trees or pinecone & twig art hangers.
GETTING READY TO TRY this?
I love seeing all the ways people make these ideas their own! If you're sharing the results of one of our projects, mention or tag me with @barleyandbirch, or share it in the comments of one of our Pinterest project pins.
