Tissue Paper Flowers

A friend called me up recently to ask to borrow my scallop circle punch.  She was surprised to find out that I only own one scallop circle punch.  I do have lots of tools and supplies but only one size of this punch.  She was making tissue paper flowers with a Dum Dum lollipop as the center.  I only have the 2" size and I love it and it has served me well, but I didn't think it would be big enough.  I couldn't immediately find it since I often use my tools and then don't put them back where they go.  (Actually I'm still in the process of organizing my work space and so many items still don't have a permanent home.)  I began doing a search on the internet to try to find the project she was wanting to do.  As I sat there thinking about the project I remembered that I own a couple of Nestabilites stacking dies.  I got them out along with my Cuttlebug  and got to work.  When I see or hear of a neat idea, I like to try it out for myself.  I had some cheap, white tissue paper that I've had for awhile from Walmart.  It's square in shape so instead of cutting it down to size I simply folded it up til I got close to the size I wanted.  I then ran that through the Cuttlebug.  I used the largest size scallop circle in the package.  I then used one of my small hand punches to punch holes in the center of the circle. (1/16" works, but the 1/8" worked the best.)  I didn't have any lollipops readily available, so I used a pipe cleaner, cut off of another project I had in the room.  For the center I used a bell that fell off of a pair of Christmas socks.  (They were fun, but drove my cats nuts wondering were the cat toy was, but not ever seeing it, (they LOVE the fishing pole toys with metallic paper and a bell.))    I then added the tissue paper one layer at a time, scrunching it together round the bell before adding the next layer.  After all of the layers were on, I then slowly opened each layer up, sometimes folding it backwards so that I could reach all of the layers.  I then flipped it back on itself so that it looked like a flower.  It turned out great!  Looks a lot like a carnation, but the peony it one of my favorite flowers so that's what I'm calling them.  After making that one, I tried to make them smaller and by using some lollipops I found in the house.  I liked the big ones better.  I had to try it in other colors so I went to the store and bought different colors.  Those are really fun, color adds a whole new level of beauty.  As soon as I get pics I'll post.  I'd also like to post a tutorial, but 'll have to wait til my friend returns my machine.

For the flowers pictured above, all I did was take a pipe cleaner, add a clear pony bead to the end, and wrapped about two inches around itself.  I then punched a hole into the center of the circles and added them one at a time to the pipe cleaner scrunching each one.  I then carefully peeled back each layer until they were all unscrunched and put back into place creating the flower.  I then added another clear pony bead to keep them in place.  I then found some green straws and slipped the straw over the pipe cleaner which then gave them much needed stability.  I may try to wrap the stems with floral tape and see what that does.