Melinda signed up to host and decorate a table for the Spring Tea at her church. Right away I knew what we could use for part of the decoration. Almost five years ago my sisters and I made decorations for Melinda’s baby shower when she was expecting My Princess, using tea pot planters purchased from a craft store.

Only this time I wanted to make some whimsical flowers to put into the pots instead of “real” looking silk flowers. Last summer, my sister showed me how to make accordion folded paper flowers when we were busy making cards at our mom/sister get together. I started folding some paper while Melinda was working on a sewing project. Seeing a pile of small pieces of fabric scraps on the table gave me the idea of making flowers using both paper and fabric (or other sewing materials). After putting the first flower together, I had to go into the garage to get something and saw cut pieces of chain link fence we were going to throw away. We had just increased the fence around the garden to keep those pesky deer and critters from eating my plants! The minute I saw the fence wire pieces they no longer looked like trash but looked like the perfect stems for my whimsical flowers. Using buttons, ribbons, fabric, yarn, and even some wooden beads, I made flowers you won’t see in any garden.

Here’s a simple tutorial for making accordion folded paper flowers. I cut some of the paper strips with decorative edge scissors to vary the look of the flowers. However, because I wanted to use the hole in the middle of the folded flower (for pulling fabric, ribbon, etc. through as well as to stick my stem into) I did not hot glue a paper circle on the back as shown in the tutorial.

I first tried sewing the paper by hand to gather the strips as my sister had shown me, but my thread kept breaking– so I went with hot gluing the paper folds. I was just holding the flower down with my hand while trying to squeeze hot glue around the center fold and then holding the flower still until the glue set. After I had finished all the flowers, I was showing my mom how I made them. She came up with the great idea to use a lid the size of the flower to hold it in place for gluing and setting up. That worked so much easier– next time!I used various methods of covering up the hole in the backs of some of the flowers and covered the wire fencing with florists tape.Tomorrow we will show you pictures from the Spring Tea.