DLTK's Holiday Crafts for Kids
Christmas Tissue Paper Flowers and Juice Jar Vase

Contributed by Leanne Guenther

I've given directions for making the Christmas flowers and for making the vase. You don't have to do them both... You can make some flowers and put them in a store bought vase or you can make the vase and put in some silk flowers.

There are 4 different types of flowers you can make - you can see the instructions for these flowers at the bottom of this page.

Red, green and white flowers all look great at Christmas time. If you happen to use all red flowers with the large pointed petals it will look like poinsettia flowers.

Materials for the Vase:

juice jar (750 ml)
paper mache paste (1 part flour to 5 parts water... boil about 3 minutes and let cool)
+
strips of white paper.
paint or markers to decorate.

Materials for one flower:

tissue paper (Red, green and/or white for flowers and a bit of yellow or white for the center)
straw,
cotton ball,
scissors,
scotch tape (or floral tape)
Optional: Gold ribbon.

Directions for making the vase:

Paper mache the jar (cover with 2 layers newspaper with one layer white paper over top of that) or just cover with 3 layers of white paper.
Let dry (takes about a day for the paper mache to dry)
Decorate the jar with paint or markers. You can paint the whole jar another color or leave it white and add some design with a color that matches your flowers.

Directions for making a flower:

Cut a square of tissue paper (white or yellow) about 2" by 2".
Put a small piece of cotton (about 1/4 of a cotton ball in the center.
Scrunch the cotton filled tissue paper around the end of the straw and wrap a piece of scotch tape around it.

Put 4 or 5 petals around the cotton filled tissue paper. Tape them on.
Continue adding rows of petals until you have a nice full flower. You'll need at least 4 rows of them.
Fluff the petals out a bit to shape your flower.
Optional: add a bow out of gold ribbon at the top of the vase.
Optional: spritz a bit of perfume on your flower to scent it.

Flower Petal Templates:

I've included a picture of ONE of the flowers made with each template so you get a feel for how they look. Each flower has 20 to 30 petals in it. These templates aren't printable... just use the images as a guide when cutting out your petals.