We have come up with Mother’s Day makes in three different levels, the theme we have chosen is flowers, using tissue paper. So join in and make some fantastic Mother’s Day makes and bouquets for the kids to take home as a splendid hand made Mother’s Day gift!
Make 1:
Level – Easy
Tissue Paper Flower
You will need:
- Scrap tissue or crepe paper
- Prepared flower shape to fill in
- Glue
This is a great make for a lower age group, there is lots of ripping and scrunching and sticking involved use bright colours for a sensory experience.
Preparations:
For this make it is worth preparing your flower shape for the kids to fill in. This make is great on a sheet of card or paper. To turn this Mother’s Day make into a Mother’s Day greetings card, use a felt tip pen to draw a nice bold flower shape onto a range of coloured card for your students to fill in with their own pattern. Alternatively use the photocopier to make a stack of flower templates to be filled in, as a quick and easy solution.
To adapt for a slightly older age group you could encourage your students to design their own flowers. Remember, when undertaking your own Mother’s Day makes, there are no rules and your imaginations are the only barriers to success!!
Step 1:
Provide a range of tissue or crepe paper scraps. This make is brilliant because it is also a way to use up those scrappy bits of paper and tissue paper that are hanging around.
We have a fantastic range of tissue papers, from offcuts to shapes and even new spring themed colours!
Step 2:
Scrunch your chosen coloured paper into balls, you can use one colour or a variety on each petal of the flower.
Step 3:
Apply plenty of glue to the balls of paper and stick them down within the lines of the petals. Make sure you pack them tightly to give a colour effect.
Step 4:
Leave to dry and present as a wonderful Mother’s Day gift.
Make 2:
Level – Medium
Easy Pipe Cleaner Flower
You will need:
This is an easy version of the Mother’s Day paper flower bouquet and one of our favourite Mother’s Day makes! This one simply uses tissue paper and chenille stems / pipecleaners. Suitable for a middle ranging age group. This is a low mess make as it requires no glue.
Step 1:
Cut your tissue paper for the petals, make sure you cut a nice wide strip of tissue or crepe paper (about 20cm in thickness) and about 25cm in length.
Step 2:
Fold your tissue paper into concertina shapes. Each fold should be about 2cm in thickness and try to keep each fold nice and even.
Step 3:
You can at this point customise your flower petals but cutting the ends of each concertina. You can cut in big wide petal shapes or small shreds to create the effect of different flowers.
Step 4:
Fold your concertina paper in half, and also fold your chenille stem in half too. You can then loop the stem over the concertina and twist the two ‘legs’ of the stem together at the top.
Step 5:
Continue twisting the stem together and about half way down the flower stem, use one side of the chenille stem/ pipe cleaner to create a leaf by bending the chenille/ pipe cleaner into shape, secure by twisting a little at the base of the leaf together.
Step 6:
Fluff out your petals to create the flower head shape.
Repeat the steps above with different colours to create a full mother’s day bouquet.
Make 3:
Level – Hard
Tissue Paper Flower Bouquet
You will need:
- Tissue paper – our new spring themed colours would be perfect for this make.
- Wire
- Scissors
- Paper and pencil
This classic Mother’s day paper bouquet make is simple yet highly effective. For flowers that won’t droop and don’t need to be put into water, it is suitable for a slightly older age group and is also fun for adults to try too! One of the harder Mother’s Day makes on this post, but ultimately very rewarding! Mum will love it!
Step 1:
Prepare your wire stem, cut about a 15cm length of wire to create the stem. If you need to double the wire up because your wire is thin, this is fine as you will be covering the stem with tissue paper. Next cut a long strip or strips of green crepe or tissue paper about 1cm wide and this needs to be about 3x the length of your stem.
Step 2:
Create the centre of your flower, this is done with one scrunched up ball of tissue paper roughly 1cm in size, and cutting another small circular bit of tissue paper about 4cm in diameter. Wrap the ball of tissue paper in the circular paper and secure by wrapping some of the wire you cut before around the base (make sure you leave a good amount of wire for the stem.)
Step 3:
Next use your green tissue paper you cut earlier and wrap this around the stem, making sure all the wire is covered. Secure the bottom with sticky tape, and start wrapping from there.
Step 4:
To make the petals, stick to simple shape to create each petal. Cut a long strip of tissue or crepe paper about 10cm wide (you can use multiple strips instead of one long strip if needs be). Fold the paper up into a small rectangle.
Step 5:
If you are using a template for your petals cut around this, if you are freestyling it carefully cut your petal shapes out of the tissue or crepe paper. Because the paper was folded up, when you unfold all the petals should be of a (fairly) uniform shape and size.
Step 6:
Assemble the flower! Taking the stem and centre of the flower you created earlier, begin to wrap the petals around the stem using the thicker base of the petals. Once you have wrapped all the tissue paper around the stem, secure with a further bit of wire (you can then cover this up with another small strip of green paper if you like).
There you have it – one flower completed! You can then continue to create the flowers with different colours of tissue and crepe paper. You could add leaves too if you want.
There are so many variations on the petal shape you can use too. You can customise these paper flowers in many ways. You don’t even need to have tissue paper and crepe paper handy, you could even simply use coloured paper to create your Mother’s Day bouquet. Mother’s Day makes are easily adaptable to make sure Mum gets something she’ll like!
Images from:
- Flower make: http://www.messforless.net/tissue-paper-flower-art-activity/#_a5y_p=2207579
- Chenille stem /pipe cleaner make: http://www.craftbyphoto.com/easy-tissue-paper-flowers/
- Paper flower bouquet: http://www.surprisediy.com/diy-486.html
