I can't explain it, but Mexican style folded crepe paper flowers never looked so good, believe me they are gorgeous! I am honestly planning to fill the house with them for Purim.....decorating the tops of frames, attached to the arms of my chandelier and pouring out of tall vases like these. Oh, and I'm planning to make a centerpiece for the Mexican fiesta party that I'm going to show you how to make, along with some foodies in the blog world. (Look for that next week.)
I'm sure most of you have made flowers like this at one point in time, but now is the time to go all out with them, in all sizes and colors, though I'd stay with one color group per bouquet. Mix pinks, reds, and oranges, or mix blues, greens and purples for the most lovely results. And best of all, they're so simple to make, even the kids can help, and in one sitting you can easily have a few large bouquets.
You'll Need:
- crepe paper (you can use tissue paper, but I think crepe paper looks much better)
- floral wire stems
- scissors
How To:
- Make a stack of anywhere from four (for smaller flowers) to eight squarish sheets of crepe paper. My flowers in the photo were made with 6 or 8 layers, and from a roll of crepe paper, 150 x 50cm, I created two nice sized flowers. The bouquets in the photos were each made from six flowers.
- Very important: Take note of the grain of the crepe paper, and make sure that all the pieces in your stack have the grain running the same way.
- Turn the stack of crepe paper such that the grain is running horizontally, left to right. Why? Because other wise you may end up with a very floppy looking flower, especially if you use the thin crepe paper that I used. I threw out a bunch before I realized this important tip!
- Begin folding the stack accordion style
- Wrap a piece of floral wire around the center and twist to secure
- Cut petal shapes at each end of the folded piece, see my diagram here
- Open the accordion, and start very gently pulling the layers up towards the center to shape the flower
- Play a bit with the layers to get a nice shape, and voila!
