DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Fourth of July Tissue Paper Flowers and Juice Jar Vase

I've given directions for making the 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.

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, white and blue for flowers and a bit of yellow or white for the center)
• straw
• cotton ball
• scissors,
• scotch tape (or floral tape)

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)

Templates:

• 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.  If you are really ambitious you may even want to try to paint stars and strips on your vase!

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:  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.

	heart shaped petal template (I think it looks like a rose or peony flower -- this is my favorite)
	large pointed petal template (I think this one looks like a water lily)
	small pointed petal template (this has twice the petals of the others... 40 to 60 petals in a flower)
	tri-petal template