Hanging Tissue Paper DIY

Tissue Paper DIY's.

I have always been the kind of person who was drawn to DIY's which appeared incredibly complicated and challenging; but were in fact more simple than you could have imagined. Tissue paper is a medium which allows you to make your creations look that much more complex and intricate than what they really are. These two tissue paper DIY's are incredibly simple and easy to make, using minimal supplies and, for those busy DIYers, take up minimal time!


Hanging Tissue Paper Heart/ Letter.

You will need:
Tissue paper/ crepe paper (in whatever colours you wish to use!).
Plenty of Cardboard (any thickness, from cereal box, to heavy duty moving boxes).
A Pen.
A pair of Scissors (that will be able to cut your chosen cardboard).
A Glue gun (I choose to use a glue gun as it's the quickest and most effective way to work, you can use another glue but it will slow the process down a lot).

Step ONE

Take your cardboard, obviously the size of your piece of cardboard needs to correlate with the size of the heart or letter you wish to make. And draw out your heart or letter (In 3D form, i.e bubble writing style)

Mine is already cut out here but you can see what I mean by the shape of the lettering.

Just to show you the thickness of my cardboard, I think I used just a parcel box, slightly
thicker than a cereal box!

Then you want to cut out your heart shape or letter and you should end up with something similar to my
images!

Step TWO
You now want to put your cut out to one side and get your tissue paper. To make these flower looking creations on your cut out we need to prepare the tissue paper. Your tissue paper so come packaged similar to this: 

                                 

Taking the entire piece of tissue paper as it is, or removing some of the pieces if you have a smaller cut out shape, but maintaining that original shape of the tissue/crepe paper. FOLD the tissue paper in half. It should now look similar to this:

Now you have a couple of choices, if you want to save time and use your tissue paper more sparingly, then follow what I'm about to show you! If you would prefer to create smaller 'flowers' on your cut out then you will have to take what I show you and fold your tissue/crepe paper smaller than what I do.  
Once your tissue paper is folded in half, you want to now fold your paper into an 'S' shape fold, take on side over the top, in front of the paper like this:

And then fold the other side BEHIND the tissue paper, and from this angle it will look like an 'S' shape fold:

You just want to squash that flat to make it easier for you to cut this later...

Step THREE
Now you want to cut circle/oval shapes out of this fold you have created, you can draw this onto the tissue/crepe paper if you need, I like the shapes to be more irregular and not exactly perfect (as it also isnt necessary), and so here's an example image of the shape I cut from my paper:

So you pretty much only need to cut off the corners!

Repeat steps Two and Three with all of the colours or papers that you are using, if you're only using one colour then you're already ready for the next step!

Step FOURYou're going to need your cut out shape back now, and turn on your glue gun! You're going to take one of your oval/circle pieces of tissue/crepe paper, placing your finger in the middle of the shape and pinching from the under side, like this:

Once you've got that pinched just pinch it harder and twist the paper slightly in your grip, you should end up with something similar to this: 

You can repeat this process with all of your circles of paper immediately or continue to do this process as you go along (I normally just pinch and twist the paper as I go along).

Step FIVE

Time to start glueing! Taking your glue gun, applying a small amount of the glue onto your cardboard cut out shape, you can start in the middle or wherever you like, it's not going to make a difference on the final product. And quickly before the glue begins to cool/dry stick down your paper 'flower' bottom to the cardboard (the bottom is where you pinched).

                             

            

Continue this process over and over, shaping the flowers as you like once they're glued to your shape, creating the look that you like best!

And there you have it! The colours that I used in my examples for this are not the best combination but I cut all the tissue paper before I realised I didn't even like my own colour combination and didn't want to waste the paper! It looks cute on the wall though so it's not all bad!
If you want to hang your cardboard shapes.. This step is very simple, take whatever type of hanging material you want to use; string, ribbon, thread etc. and tie this in a loop, using your glue gun, secure this in place! Be sure to measure the length of your string/ribbon before you glue it to your shapes (although it can easily be removed and replaced!).

More DIY's coming very soon so stay tuned for more!