Cherry Blossoms

Ahhh Spring. That wonderful time of year when the winter blahs turn into spring allergies. Everyone opens their blinds and windows and comes out of hiding with tissues and eye drops in hand. Everything comes out of hibernation with a wash of color. This year I was in the Caribbean when the magic of Spring came alive. I know, the Caribbean! It was rough, but I somehow made it through 14 nights of island sun and turquoise waters.  I missed the blooming Dogwoods and Flowering Pear trees, although I did get a brief glimpse of some Eastern Redbud trees while driving home through the Smoky Mountains. Gone were the Tulips and Daffodils. So I decided I needed to bring some of what I missed into my home, something that would last more than two short weeks. At least until the layer of dust is so thick I can no longer tell what color it's suppose to be. I made this pretty and easy (pretty easy!) cherry blossom centerpiece. I'm going to put this in the middle of my dinning table, which just happens to have a cherry blossom table runner on it. Well, I will once I take the Easter decorations off it and put them away. It might be awhile.

Start off with some tissue paper. I used a two different shades of pink. Of course you can use any colors for this, it doesn't have to be pink. Any colors would look great, except maybe brown. Usually brown flowers are not a good thing.  You're going to cut out the petals. I suggest folding the tissue paper to be able to cut more than one petal out at a time. Don't worry if the don't look perfect, it's not going to matter. Mine were around 2 1/2 inches across.

Happy little petals. 

Next you want to put two sheets together to make your blossom. I used the darker pink for the outside and lighter on the inside. Lay them so they don't line up with each other. 

                        Now you are going to grab the center part and twist the two pieces together. 

I made some with both colors and a few single colored ones for a little variation. 

Next you need some sticks. If you can find a dead tree or one that has not bloomed yet grab some off of it. It's a pain to try and remove all the leaves. I wanted this to look as natural as possible so I didn't look for perfectly straight sticks or all the same length. Besides, I don't have the patience to search for sticks like that. 

To attach the tissue buds I used a hot glue gun. I'm not a fan of hot glue guns because they are messy and I hate that glue string that always ends up all over your masterpiece. In this case I figured it would look natural, like a left over spider web in the trees. I glued my flowers on to the sticks where the leaves would have been budding from if I hadn't killed these branches by ripping them off the tree. I didn't glue them to every single bud point because I didn't want an overflow of flowers, just enough to look like they were just beginning to bloom. I also used a lot of the single light pink pieces of paper along with the pieces with both colors together. 

Finally I picked most of the glue webs off, peeled the glue off my fingernails and placed all my finished branches in a vase. I stuffed paper around the branches in the vase to keep them in the center and placed my unused tissue flowers on top. 

Even though these are not real allergy inducing flowers my right eye is still itching. Eye drops here I come.