THE SOUND OF MUSIC: Tissue Paper Flowers

Last summer I was the set coordinator for a women's event. When you only have a budget of $250 you have to get creative. These little beauties saved my life! When you can get a variety box of 450 sheets of tissue paper from www.nashvillewraps.com for about $30 you know you can count yourself among the "Frugalistas!"

There are several tutorials online for making tissue paper flowers so I'm not going to go into the basics. However, I will tell you how I made the cocktail umbrella centers.

I had a box of these cocktail umbrellas lying around. I have no idea where they came from but they were exactly the colors I needed. I knew I had to think of a use for them so after a couple of days of mulling it over in my head...SHAZAM!...centers for the tissue paper flowers!

Step 1: Turn on a good movie. Step 2: Open an umbrella, apply a tiny bit of Super Glue to the center "pole." Even though the little rubber ring helps to hold up the umbrella, you will need the glue. It makes them all look uniform and even. Step 3: Hold for a few seconds until it adheres and won't slide back down. Step 4: Let it dry. Step 5: Cut a styrofoam ball in half. Step 6: Using only one half, poke the umbrellas into the rounded side of the styrofoam, arranging them so you have full coverage and can't see much of the styrofoam anymore. Step 7: Push back the tissue paper layers from the center of the flower. Step 8: Glue the styrofoam down into the center of the flower.

The more I made the more creative they became. Just by rounding the edges of the petals or by cutting them into a point you can get all kinds of different looks. The top picture shows one where I alternated layers of light pink/dark pink.

Here are a few pics of the set elements. I love the color explosion!