City of Roses: Paper Flowers

You’ll need:

- Colorful tissue paper (any paper can work, but tissue paper works best)

- Scissors

- Pipe cleaners (or old twist ties)

If you’d like to be more eco-friendly, you can substitute newspaper instead of tissue paper, and used twist ties instead of pipe cleaners - and you can even paint your newspaper petals after!

First, stack six pieces of tissue paper and fold them accordion style until you have a long skinny rectangle of folded paper. Play around with colors: you can use all one color, or pick all different kinds!

Next, wrap a pipe cleaner around the middle of the paper - it should look like a T-shape, with the pipe cleaner forming the flower stem. Now, cut the ends of the tissue paper into whatever shape you like - different shapes will create different flowers!

With the pipe cleaner still in the middle, gently unfold each side so that it looks like a bowtie. Carefully pull out each layer of tissue paper to open up your flower - it’s okay if the paper rips a little, you just want it to fluff up. You can pull on just one side or pull both sides out to create different flowers!

Once you’ve got some beautiful paper bouquets in hand, show them to us! Tag the Des Plaines History Center on Facebook or Twitter, or email us a photo directly at contact@desplaineshistory.org