I have come to the conclusion that any paper. . . that is ANY paper. . . can be transformed into a gorgeous paper flower. Other than poms for gift toppers and tree ornaments, I had yet to experiment with tissue paper to make paper flowers, until this weekend. Having just returned from San Francisco to film my new class series with Creativebug on the tail of Livia Cetti from The Green Vase (who in my opinion is the queen of tissue paper flowers), I immediately purchased her new book and watched her first paper flower class over on Creativebug. It is a must watch for any of you who love to make paper flowers and right now they have a free trial offer. Of course you may also want to buy her new book called The Exquisite Book of Paper Flowers.

After reading her book I knew that it was time to make a paper poppy in my own style. Poppy petals are so fragile and tissue like, that this paper just seemed too perfect. I used Livia’s technique of bleaching the edge of the tissue which gave a gorgeous finish are variation of color for all of my poppies. Her recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of bleach to 1.5 cups of water. For these poppies, I cut 3 inch strips of each color. I then rolled the strip so that all of the long edges were together. Holding the top of the three inch tall roll, I dipped the edge into the bleach mix. I found that holding the tissue in the bleach mix about 5 seconds worked well for me. I liked the bleach to soak up to about half of three inches to get the best effect and noticed that different colors and different paper responded differently. Remember that once you pull the paper out of the bleach, it will still move into the dry part of the paper. Once dipped, I carefully unrolled the strip and hung it to dry. You will want to be careful to not bleach your clothes or other thing that are in your path. I hung all of my strips in my dining room window, pinning them onto a clothesline that I had attached for this project. The paper dries fairly quickly, but you will want to make for sure they are completely dry before you start to make your flowers. For the rest of the steps on how to make these pretty blooms, I have created this step-by-step tutorial for you. These are so fun to make and are a great project for your craft night with the girlfriends and if you use a low temp glue gun (which I always recommend anyway), can even make this project perfect for kids. These happy flowers are perfect for a Mother’s Day bouquet, don’t you think? Enjoy! ~ Lia