3D / Sculpture | Day of the Dead / Dia de los Muertos | Holiday / Event | Lessons | Mexico | Multicultural | Paper
Mexican Paper Marigolds for “Day of the Dead”
“Day of the Dead” is a traditional Mexican holiday for honoring ancestors and loved ones who have died, and is celebrated each year on November 1st & 2nd. This festive, family-centered holiday celebrates the cycle of life and highlights the Mexican peoples’ general acceptance, rather than fear, of death. Colorful marigolds are a regular feature adorning the altars or “ofrendas” set up for honoring loved ones. These Mexican paper marigolds are super-easy and FUN to make! You’ll be amazed by how great they turn out!It’s easy to make your own Mexican paper marigolds!
Materials:
- one sheet of orange tissue paper per flower
- one green chenille stem (pipe cleaner) per flower
- scissors
Directions:
1. Fold the long edge of your tissue paper in half, so that the short ends meet.
2. Fold it in half again, the same direction. You should have a long, skinny rectangle.
3. With one of the short ends facing you, accordion fold this rectangle into folds that are ½” to 1” wide.
4. Next, twist a pipe cleaner around the middle of your folded accordion, twisting the ends into a stem.
5. Cut about ¼” off each end, then cut a “V” shape into each of the ends.
6. Pull out your accordion so that it forms a circle.
7. Carefully pull up the first layer of tissue paper as far up as it will go, all around the circle.
8. Repeat with each layer until your flower is fluffy and full.
For Cinco de Mayo decor (or any festive occasion), try creating lots of these Mexican paper marigolds in a variety of colors. You can even join two halves together to make a sphere to hang outside or from the ceiling.
How big is your 1 piece of tissue paper?
Just the standard 20″x30″, straight out of the package!
thanks. Great blog by the way. I'm a K-4 Spanish teacher in Santa Barbara and these projects are great.
All looks good. Will try this, too.
K-5 Spanish in Massachusetts
:-)
So could you do this without the tissue paper and use regular colored paper?
I actually haven’t tried it with regular paper. I think it would be too thick to fold easily and would be really hard to pull the layers apart to fluff it out. But why not try it if you’re curious? Let us know how it goes!!
Could you make these with crepe paper? If so, how big do I need to cut off the roll? We have lots of crepe paper to make use of and these look wonderful.
I haven’t tried making these with crepe paper, but it would depend on how wide the crepe paper is and if you could make enough folds to give the flowers their fluffiness. The paper I used was 20″ x 26″. Since you have a lot of it, why not experiment? Give it a try and let us know how it goes!