SIMPLE AND INEXPENSIVE PARTY, SHOWER, AND BANQUET DECOR {TISSUE PAPER FLOWERS}

Yesterday I shared a simple tutorial for making tissue paper flowers two different ways.  Today, I'll show you several ways to decorate with them.

First up, I always like to share ideas for decorating for large events in a banquet or dinner setting, usually at our church.  It's surprising how hard it is to find simple, budget friendly ideas for decorating large gatherings!  We recently had a Women's Event at church, and it's always a challenge to come up with cute, affordable decor for a large area with a lot of tables to decorate.

A fabulous team of friends helped me make tons of flowers- we had about 50 large and 75 small ones to use.  We layed them flat on each table as a centerpiece, using 1 large and 2 small per table.

After adding the other odds and ends that needed to go on each table, they filled the space nicely.  (Our high school choir students always serve and take care of drink refills, working for "tips" to offset the cost of their choir trip, so we included a tip jar on each table.)

The stage is always a challenge to fill also, and we've opted to keep it super simple for the past few events.  I used all of our extra flowers and scattered them around the curtains on the stage, attaching each one from the back with a straight pin.  It made a cute back drop for photos, too.

After the event, we bagged all of the flowers up in large trash bags to store them (they might need a note on them that says "NOT TRASH!").  We didn't stuff the bags too full so the flowers wouldn't get smashed too badly.  When ready to use again, they just needed a quick fluff.  

The next event we used the flowers for was my daughter's birthday.  We had a friend party and a family party lined up two nights back to back, and I wanted to use the flowers as a cute backdrop for a make-shift photo booth.  After realizing I didn't have one spot with enough free wall space to set up a photo booth in the house, I decided to use the front porch, and I think it was even better!  Everyone knew where the party was, for sure!

I just used a small piece of rolled up masking tape to secure each flower.  They are so light weight that it worked perfectly, and they stayed put for several days.  Oh, and by the way, I arranged them in such a way that the door was still able to fully open and close without the flowers interfering.

With a few photo props from Hobby Lobby, the birthday girl took pics with all of her friends and family.

Since the party spilled out onto the patio we used a few flowers out there as well.

The flowers lingered on the porch through Mother's Day, another good photo-op!

The flowers are now back in their storage bags, but I'll definitely have them on hand for more parties in the future, and how cute would they be for wedding or baby shower decorations?

Here's a few more large scale events I've decorated for if you're looking for more ideas!

Spring Stage and Table Setting Ideas

Travel Theme Stage and Table Setting Ideas

Fall Banquet Stage and Table Setting Ideas

5th Grade School Graduation (and a few teacher gift ideas)