Tissue Paper Flower Garland

Materials:
*20" x 20" sheets of tissue paper in 3 colors of your choice, four sheets of each color for a total of 20 sheets.
*Twine
*Stapler
*Scissors

Directions:
*Cut each sheet of tissue paper into four 10" x 10" squares.  Each set of four squares will make one flower.
*Fold four sheets together accordion style, using 1.5" folds and then staple the midpoint of the folded paper.

*Shape the ends.  I used three different styles for the ends to get three different floral looks (the rounded edges are used for this tutorial; see the other styles toward the bottom of this post), but feel free to experiment with different cuts.

*Spread out one side like this:

*Carefully peel up the first layer of tissue paper, pulling it toward the staple.

*Then lift the second layer.

*Next lift the third layer.

*Finally push up the bottom layer a bit.

*Repeat the process with the other side.  Fluff and spread the layers/petals until you have an arrangement you're happy with,

*Here are the other two petal styles and their resultant flower shapes:

*Once you've made all of your flowers, staple the backs to the twine.

*Once all of the flowers are attached, string them up.  Now you have a flower garland.

Paper Flower Candle Holder

     Looking for a way to make plain, LED tealight candles look nicer?  Add a paper flower candle holder.  This incarnation of the craft can be somewhat time consuming because it requires cutting out all of the detailed areas, but if you don't cut out the detailed areas you could have a much faster and still pretty flower holder.  I got my inspiration for this craft from this site.

Materials:
*2 sheets of copy paper in color of your choice
*Double sided tape
*Scissors
*X-acto knife
*LED tealight candle (you could probably use a regular candle as well, as long as it was in a glass holder so you minimize the risk of burning the paper)

Directions:
*Size the below template so that your tealight candle would fit in the center of the smaller flower and then print out and cut out the template, using your X-acto knife to cut out the detailed regions.

*Trace two copies of the large template and one copy of the small template onto the copy paper and then cut out.  I took a shortcut on this step and used my Silhouette CAMEO to cut everything out.

*Bend up the petals on the smaller flower like this:

*Curl the petals of one of the smaller flowers like so and then tape the bottom of the smaller flower to the center of this larger flower.

*Curl the petals of the remaining flower a little and then tape the bottom of the two flowers stacked together to the center of this flower.

*Place the candle in the center and you're done!

Galaxy Print Owl Cutout Notebook

     My sister gave me this adorable owl cutout notebook (I think she got it at Dollar Tree, so if you're looking for the exact notebook I used, that's a good place to check).  The plain brown cover was kind of boring, though, so I decided to spruce it up with some paint.

Materials:
*Owl cutout notebook (this will work for any notebook, but you won't have the owl cutout unless it's already a part of your notebook)
*Black, blue, purple, white, and red paints
*Paint sponge brush
*Regular paintbrush
*Aluminum foil (if your notebook has the cutout)
*Tape or glue (if your notebook has the cutout)

Directions:
*This is what the original notebook looked like:

*Cover your work space in scrap paper and tuck a sheet of paper beneath the cover to protect the top page from paint.

*Paint the cover black and then let dry.  (I took the picture while the cover was still partially wet, so that's why it looks like there are two different shades of paint there.)

*Sponge on patches of dark blue.  I took regular blue paint and added a little bit of black to get this shade.  Let dry.

*Add some light blue paint.  I mixed white and blue together to get this color.  Let dry.

*Add some purple.  You can see here that I used two different shades of purple, regular purple and a lighter purple which I made by mixing purple and white.  Let dry.

*Add some pink.  I made this dusty rose color by mixing a bit of purple with some red and a lot of white.  A more vibrant shade of paint might work nicely, though.  Let dry.

*Dip your paintbrush in white paint and flick it with your finger to create the stars.  You'll want to make sure your work station is well covered for this step.  Let dry.

*Once the cover has dried, pull out the sheet of paper you were using to protect the inside cover.  Tape or glue some aluminum foil behind the owl cutout for a shiny effect.  Alternately, you could use a contrasting color to really make the owl shape pop out from its surroundings.

Popsicle Stick and Washi Tape Photo Frame

Materials:
*Popsicle sticks
*Washi tape
*Black and white photo
*All purpose adhesive
*Plain paper or paperboard (optional)

Directions:
*Lay out popsicle sticks long edge to long edge until you have enough to make a frame for your photo.
*Cover your popsicle sticks with washi tape.  For the sticks that I knew were going to be covered up by the photo, I just covered the ends to save on tape.

*Once you've finished adding tape, glue sticks together long edge to long edge.

*Glue down photo.
*For reinforcement, you can add some plain paper or some paperboard to the back of the frame.