May Day Tissue Flower Wreath

It's been so amazing to have some green color pop up in our world this week, it truly and finally feels like spring. And while the green has come, we're still awaiting those colorful May flowers. But as we probably have a small wait still (although really, I think it's only small) we put together these May Day Tissue Flower Wreaths.

We enjoyed making paper plate wreaths at St. Patrick's Day, so these were a great spin off for a new season. 

Materials:
Paper plate
Green paint
Scrap pieces of colorful tissue
Pony beads
Green pipe cleaners
Ribbon
Masking tape
Tool Needed: scissors, paint brushes, and a hole punch.

There are really three parts to the whole project:

1) Prepare the paper plate wreath base. Cut a circle out of the middle of a plate and have kids paint the remaining ring green. Let it dry. 

Once the plate is dry, use the hole punch to punch two holes close together near the top, then punch 3 to 4 holes (this will depend on how many flowers you make) around the edges. 

2) Make the flowers. We have a specific way we like to make tissue paper flowers. For this project we cut our green pipe cleaners in half to start. At one end of each pipe cleaner we wrapped a small pony bead. 

I also cut different sized circles out of the tissue paper scraps. For each flower we had two sized circles- smaller inner circles and larger outer circles. The boys would carefully push the smaller circles onto the end of the pipe cleaner without a bead and push the paper down to the bead. They then added the larger circles. At the end they would scrunch both layers together.  

(Tip: I find that elementary aged kids are better able to make the flowers independently while littler guys, like Little Brother at age 3, still need a helping hand to actually get the tissue paper onto the pipe cleaner with out ripping the paper.) 

You'll want to make 3 to 5 flowers per wreath. 

3. Assemble the Wreath. Once the plate is dry and the flowers are ready, the wreath is ready to assemble. 

Space the flowers out so that a pipe cleaner goes through each of the holes you've punched. (The flowers should be touching the part that is painted green. Trim the excess pipe cleaner with scissors and tape the stems down to the back with the masking tape. 

Use the ribbon and the two holes close together at the top to create a loop for hanging and a decorative bow. 

The wreath is now ready to be displayed somewhere where you need a little extra color! This would also be very pretty for a Cinco De Mayo party!