DIY: Tissue Paper Garland

Love this DIY Tissue Paper Garland from Total Art Soul's blog!  We think this would be fantastic in themed colors (i.e. red and green for Christmas, which is coming up faster than you want to think it is...).

Check out their blog!

Materials Needed:

- string

- glue stick

- tissue paper

- scissors

Step 1:

Cut your tissue paper into equal squares or rectangles.  You could also do triangles.

Step 2:

Fold each piece of tissue paper in 2 and apply glue to the inside.  Place the string in the center, fold and press firmly. Repeat this process for however many meters of garland you would like.

It's that simple!

DIY: Crepe Paper Pom Poms

While we realize that the Fourth of July has passed, we feel that this tutorial is so easy and fun it's good to be used year round!  100 Directions shows you how to whip this up in a jiff, and imagine how cute this would look at a baby shower, wedding table, anniversary celebration (gold for the 50 year!), or anything really...maybe we'll just decorate the house in fun summer color just because we can!  What about you...do you love them like we do??

Materials you need:

• Crepe paper streamers
• Ribbon
• Cardboard
• Scissors

Step by step instructions to make patriotic pom pom decorations:

1. Cut cardboard into a rectangle approximately 3″ x 6″. The size of this piece is directly related to how big or small your pom poms can be.
2. Layer the colors of paper you want to use and wrap around the cardboard at least 7 times. The more you wrap, the thicker your pom pom.
3. Slide the wrapped paper off the cardboard and tie a ribbon around the middle. Be careful to not tie to tightly to prevent tearing the paper. This ribbon can be used to hang your pom poms later, so make it long enough to tie and hang.
4. Cut the edges of the paper, first cut the end of the loop and then cut toward the ribbon in strips.
5. Carefully fluffy the pom pom pieces by gently pulling and moving them around until you get the desired look.

diy project: peaches’ coffee filter flowers

Stunning Peaches' Coffee Filter Flowers - So easy!!!

Materials:

for 10 grapefruit size paper peony flowers

- 60 standard size coffee filters
- 2 tubes of water based paint, similar in tone (yellow/orange or pink/red or blue/purple, etc..)
- 3 cups of water in 3 separate containers
- 10 plastic drinking straws
- Masking tape (make it green tape if you want a covered stem, but any tape will work fine)
cost:
$6 total for 100 filters, 2 tubes of craft paint, 1 roll of masking tape, and 10 drinking straws (okay, those were free!). Add $6 to buy special green masking tape (totally optional).

time: 1 hour to dye and assemble + 3 hours drying time.

Instructions:
1. Prepare three dye baths; deep, medium, pale. Divide your filters into three separate groups; inside/deepest color/10 filters, middle/medium color/20 filters, outside/palest color/30 filters, and submerge in dye baths. Remove after one minute for pale color, or remove after 1 hour for more intense results.

2. Wring filters to remove excess water and dye. Separate filters and hang to dry. Once they are thoroughly dry, organize your filters by depth of color: deep/inside, medium/middle, pale/outside
3. Fold and snip. Cut one small hole in the middle of each filter and trim jagged edges around the rim. The deepest color filters should have the most ragged edges, while the palest filters should have mildly curvaceous edges. note: Keep filters in stacks at all times!

4. If you want leaves on your flower, trim from previously dyed green filters now (optional). note: The leftover trimming bits on this are GORGEOUS, consider saving them for fun projects in future!

5. Lay out components to make one flower: 1 deepest color filter (inside), 2 medium color filters (middle), 3 pale filters (outside), one drinking straw, masking tape.

6. Do yourself a favor and tear off four 2“ pieces of masking tape before you start to assemble.
7. Take the deepest color filter and twist in the center. Tape the twist to the tip of the drinking straw. Take the drinking straw and insert in the center hole you snipped into the two middle layer filters.

8. Pull the middle layer up around the inner layer, twist, and tape. Pull the outside layer up around the inside/middle layer, twist, and tape.

9. To add a stem, tear off 12” of green tape and attach leaves at random intervals. Wrap and twist tape down around the drink straw, snip at desired length. Gently pull back petals and behold your beautiful paper peony!

note: Expect the first flower to take ten minutes and come out looking poorly. The second will improve mildly, but not much. Stick with it! Number three will be beautiful and take less than a minute. Get an assembly line going and you will have a paper garden in an afternoon!

DIY Wall Art: Bubbles

What an inexpensive and fabulous idea from Mr. Handsomeface.  This contemporary wall bubble art will make people think you spent hours, when it takes minutes!! Use up that tissue paper from present you get and make this a great upcycled project!

Check out their blog for more fun DIY art!!

Here are the supplies you'll need:

• a stretched canvas
• big paint brush
• scissors
• white acrylic paint
• Mod Podge
• tissue paper in primary colors

Stretched canvases can be purchased in any arts & craft store. If you buy a cheap one, and why the hell not, they're not as expensive as you think. You can often find the store brand canvases are bundles in packages of 3 for a cheaper price. Since you're buying a cheap canvas, you'll want to paint the whole thing with a nice coat of white paint first. Even if the canvas looks nice and white, it will look even better with a coat of paint on it!

Ah, that's better. Set that aside to dry and now here comes the only hard part in the whole project. Cut out 3 circles from your tissue paper. Get creative and play around with different sizes. Here comes the 'cheap' thing again, buy the cheapest, crappiest tissue paper you can find. You don't want that thick, expensive stuff because it won't be translucent enough. I got mine from the dollar store where they had a huge selection of colors for $1 each. Try to get bright colors that will pop against the white background, the 'red' in this trio is really a bright magenta.

Before you make anything permament, play around with the positioning on your canvas. The secondary colors that the paper make when you lay them on top of each other will look different depending on who's on top. Also, I think it looks cool when some of the bubbles goes off the edge.

When you figure out your arrangement, spread a thin coat of Mod Podge where you want the first circle to lay. Carefully and slowly lay the circle down while smoothing the air bubbles and wrinkles with your brush. It's easier to start from one edge and work your way across.

Once the circle is smoothed out and most of the wrinkles are gone, put another coat of Mod Podge on top. BE CAREFUL with this step because the paper is wet and will easily tear at this point. 

Repeat the same steps for the other 2 circles.

If you're amazing and more patient than me, you'll take your time to smooth it out perfectly. I kid myself into thinking it looks better with wrinkles.

But seriously, it's not the end of the world if there are still some wrinkles.

After all the circles are in place, add another coat of Mod Podge to make it look uniform.

I really like how this project turned out and I hope you like it too. Some other ideas: cut little squares or circles for a confetti look or change up the shapes for some variety.