Let's Make Giant Tissue Paper Flowers

We had a little kid's garden party here recently.

I thought I would nip into Spotlight and buy a heap of fake flowers for decoration … until I saw the price.  They were lovely but at $15 per stem they were not going to fit our teeny budget.
So onto plan B.
Crepe Paper!
NO glue!
NO stitching!
NO wire!
Just pretty and perfect if you are a bit on the lazy side and fancy a quick project like me!

You will need:
3 packets of crepe paper (1 main flower colour and 2 shades of green for leaves)
scissors
1 elastic band

open out your main flower colour sheet of crepe paper

gently stretch the top half of the paper being careful not to tear it

don't worry if you do tear it - just trim it to be a smooth curve shape and keep going

it will add character to your flower

roll over the end of the crepe paper a couple of times to form a little tube

keep rolling but as you roll scrunch/pleat the crepe paper with your fingers and push it into the roll.

keep hold of the bottom

it should start to look something like this

Keep rolling and scrunching until you get close to the end of the crepe paper

As you get to the end of the roll of crepe paper, trim the corner off so it has a softer, more rounded appearance

Keep rolling until you get to the end

you can either tie an elastic band around the bottom of your flower to keep it together whist you prepare the leaves or just give it a really good squeeze - it should keep it's shape.

unroll a section of each of the green (leaf colour) crepe paper and place them on top of each other

cut out two leaf shapes (rough is fine).  The base of my leaves are around 20cm (8 inches) and I cut them half way up the roll so that I could get the other leaf from the top half

you should have 4 leaves - two of each colour

stretch the tops of the leaves as you did the main flower

Using the same technique as before, take a leaf and roll & scrunch it around the bottom of your flower

I placed the lighter leaves on the inside and the darker leaves on the outside

and positioned them so that they were spread around the flower and not directly on top of each other

when you are happy with how it looks, tie an elastic band around the base of the flower so that it holds all of the leaves and the main flower

And that is it!

So simple and really effective.

You can:

• hang them - slide some string through the elastic band
• bunch them together 
• throw them on a table
• make heaps and be surrounded by a little bit of spring regardless of the time of year!

Enjoy!

Cheers

Jenny

In the blink of an eye ...

…. my smallest turned 8.

How did that happen?

So many years but sometimes it seems so few.

To celebrate we had a garden party at home with (what were we thinking ???) around 20 (!!!) seven and eight year olds.  20 is crazy but we only moved here 12 months ago and our little Miss is still finding her place so after much discussion we decided that we should have them all.

I love a home party.
I love the preparing, the planning, the discussing, the making.
I love seeing the kids and getting to know their personalities in action.
I love that the kids have a great time without paid performers in an old school type of way.
I love the way our bigger kids get in there and help out and love doing it.
I love it when the last of them leaves and we all crash on the couch.

Here are some picks of our 8 year old garden party.

"Dirt cups" or tim-tams whacked though the food processor with a bit of chocolate topping thrown in to bind them a teeny tiny bit.  SOOO yum

Salted Caramel Popcorn

The cake which was going to be a number 8 but I chickened out.  Decorating cakes isn't my strength.  After checking out Mr Google I discovered a blog called I Am Baker which, apart from being fabulous, has an excellent tutorial on how to do the icing roses.   If I can do them any 5 year old with a piping bag can!

I loved the look on the kid's faces when we cut the cake.  They were expecting chocolate not a rainbow surprise.

A little crafty gardening activity to do between games which the kids all took home.

And before you think that we are uber cool, organised party professionals, let me just keep it real for you ….
ice packs required - 2, head crash and mild concussion on trampoline
band-aids required - 1, bleeding foot whilst dancing on the carpet
kids in tears - 2 or 3 at various moments but all left the party smiling (phew)
happiest creature at party - our old friendly dog - who may have eaten the remains of 18 donuts and didn't require dinner - until one of the kids quietly mentioned that she was terrified of dogs as she hid behind my legs (oops) and we gave the dog a little rest in the laundry.
state of floor afterwards - very sticky & crunchy
dinner for the family post party - cheese toasties as we were all pooped!