Move over Martha!! A party and a tutorial...

My niece, Ashlyn, had her tenth birthday party this weekend and wanted me to help decorate for it. I took what she said she wanted, pink and black polka dots, and ran with it.

I took this picture and modified it. I love the Wal-Martha tissue paper flowers and did buy a kit on clearance, but the colors did not go with our theme.

Here is the Birthday Girl herself. Happy Birthday, Ashlyn!!

Here is the table all ready for Ashlyn's friends. My sister in law was having the girls make and decorate the cupcakes so we set the sprinkles out on the table. Now, if this party had been at my house for my girl, we would have put those sprinkles in a glass cheese shaker or something. I used a Wal-Martha scalloped circle punch{bought on clearance thankyouverymuch} for the confetti on the table.

Ten candles...Black and white polka dot napkins from Target complement the theme.

A shot of the tissue paper flowers and garland I made. Scroll down for a tutorial...

Ashlyn and I came up with the idea for the girls to tie fabric strips onto flip flops. Cory and I tore fabric strips the night before and got everything all put into these cute polka dot goody bags. The girls also got glow bracelets and nail polish.

I made the banner for Ashlyn's present from us, but it will also look great when her parents redo her room for her. She wants it hot pink with black polka dots and I get to help!!

Here Lilly is helping me make the garland that was hanging with the tissue paper flowers. I used that same Wal-Martha punch and glue sticked those paper cut outs to thin satin ribbon.

Just sandwich the ribbon in between the circles.

Now onto the tissue paper flower tutorial...

You will need tissue paper. Several packs. Pipe cleaners. Fishing line to hang.

To make a large flower you will use all 8 or 10 sheets of tissue paper, whatever comes in your pack.

Fold it accordion style, like a fan. Back and forth.

You can see the folds, just keep going back and forth until you reach the end.

Once you get it folded, you will want to cut the ends. You can either round the corners or cut the corners off, making a pointy end. I did a little of both.

Here is a round edge.

Don'tcha just love it when the lights come on??

Okay, so here you are going to fold it in half lengthwise.

You will then cut the corners. Do not leave out this step. It will result in a flower that is very hard to open. I found this step missing from most of the directions I found.

Here is what it will look like opened back up.

Here is where you will take a pipe cleaner and wrap it around the middle. If you are making smaller flowers, you can cut the pipe cleaner in half. You will also want to make a loop with the ends of the pipe cleaner to make for easier hanging.

Now you will just open the fan up and start pulling the papers apart.

Just pull the single layers apart carefully, working toward the center.

Repeat on the other side.

There you have a pretty tissue paper flower!!

If you want to make a smaller flower, just cut the paper in half and use half the amount of papers. Like, if its a pack of ten, use five sheets.

To hang the flowers like I did in the top photo, get a dowel rod and screw two eye hooks into the top, string fishing line through the hooks and just tie on the flowers with fishing line. You can hang it from the ceiling with teacup hooks, or like we did using pushpins since it was temporarily in the kitchen.

One thing I would also recommend is to paint your dowel rod white. That way it will not show as much in case you don't cover it well.

Hope y'all like it!! I would love to know if you replicate this look!! Let me know if y'all have any questions.