DIY Crepe Paper FLOWER

Flowers, you can  never grow tired of them! And I have been wanting to make these lovelies for an event.

Mikaeel's Thomas the train birthday party provided me with a perfect opportunity.

And they turned out amazing, adding that extra ooph to the celebrations!

The technique is simple and material easily available at your local art shop. You can make these well in advance, like I did and fluff them up on the day of the event.

So let's get started!

You will need:

Crepe paper

Scissors

String

Yup, that's it!

You can use any size you want, and create as many layers as you like. The more layers you have, the fluffier the flower. For this tutorial I used six 8"x8.5" pieces and five 6"x6.5" pieces for the center. 

Begin by stacking together six pieces of crepe paper.

Add a contrasting center and scallop cut the edges.

Accordion fold them together.

And tie a string down the middle of the accordion folds and if you wish to hang them up,  leave a long tail of string at  the end.

Using a pair of scissors curve each end of the accordion folds through all layers into petals like so:

Then carefully pull the center petal towards the middle. Crepe paper rips quite easily so be very careful. 

Repeat this for all layers, shaping up your petals as you go along.

Fluff up your petals and you're done! 

Easy peasy! And now you have a gorgeous flower. Use it as part of event decor, or hang it from a wall or simply use it as an embellishment on presents.

Enjoy!

Thomas The Train Party With Free Printables!

Chugga-chugga! Choo-choo!

Hello everyone!
Remember how I'd been working on Mikaeel's second birthday party? Well, it has been more than a month but I am so happy to finally be sharing it (mind you the post has lots of pictures with printable FREEBIES at the end). But hey, you can easily pull off a similar train-themed birthday party for your kiddo's next birthday! :)

My sister wanted to celebrate Mikaeel's 2nd birthday with a train-themed birthday party (we did Sesame Street on his first one!). So we decided on Thomas the train as our theme and settled on blue, red and yellow as our main colors with a bit of green thrown in. 

I started with the invites. I had fun making cookie monster and elmo cards and I felt evelope cards would be great because I wouldn't have to worry about creating separate envelopes. Besides they are super quick and easy to whip up. I got the train images off the internet, changed them somewhat using Photoshop, and then proceeded to design the card.

For a more professional look, I printed some of the text on tracing paper and the rest on white printing paper and then sealed off the envelope with a Thomas image. 

Next came the banner. I wanted it to say, "Happy Birthday Mikaeel" with each word hanging from a different string but brought together at both ends with large crepe paper flowers. I also wanted the wall behind the banner covered in  yellow crepe paper. So for "Happy Birthday" I stuck with red and blue and for "Mikaeel" I went for a train look (my sister's idea!). And I am so glad that I did because it looked really cute! 

I also made a small banner that said "Mikaeel" for the food table. I simply used this template for colored triangles and then pasted them onto 1/4 inch larger triangles cut from black chart paper. Using blue piping, I hand-stitched them together. 

Then I made lots of crepe paper flowers.

Simply love how they turned out! (UPDATE: click here for the tutorial)

No party is complete without a door-sign.

And let's not forget party favors! I got the template for these here, printed it out on blue printing paper and assembled. I created "Thank you for coming" on photoshop and stuck it on all party favors.

For the table, I wanted  to create a cupcake train. But since I was short on time, I decided to go with a simple food train. I made the engine out of thick cardstock, created slits in the front and back wheel and inserted a rectangular piece of cardstock so that the engine could stand on its own!

And made some cute food labels so the guests wouldn't have to ask or skip over a particular food.

I even made a photobooth backdrop for the party! Using UHU patafix I adhered crepe paper to the wall and pasted train cut outs and paper flowers on it. It was an instant hit with the guests!

And now for some free printables.

food label

xx