Day of the Dead Paper Flowers are a craft project that creates marigold flowers out of tissue paper to decorate homes and cemeteries for the Mexican holiday. The summary instructions are to cut orange and yellow tissue paper into circles of different sizes and a green star shape. Then curl a pipe cleaner and push it through the circles and star from smallest to largest to create a paper marigold flower. The flowers can be linked together with their pipe cleaners to form chains for decorating.

1. Day of the Dead Paper Flowers
Susan Waddington, Parish Episcopal School, Dallas TX
swaddington@parishepiscopal.org
Background
Marigolds are the flowers most associated with Day of the Dead. They are used
abundantly in homes and cemeteries for decoration. Marigold petals are also strewn
along the path between the home and cemetery, because their strong scent is thought
to guide spirits of the departed even in the dark.
Materials
Orange and yellow tissue paper; green construction paper; scissors; 6” green pipe
cleaners; tagboard templates for drawing three sizes of circles (4”, 3”, 2”) and for a
1.5”star; needle-nose pliers
Directions
1. Cut tissue paper, several sheets at a time, in half and then in half again. Trace
the star shape repeatedly on a sheet of copy paper and make copies on green
paper.
2. For each flower:
a. Trace 3 sizes of circle on a stack of 4 pieces of tissue paper and cut them
out.
b. Cut out a green star.
c. Curl the end of a pipe cleaner with the pliers.
d. Push the other end of the pipe cleaner through the center of the small,
medium, and large circles, in that order.
e. Push the pipe cleaner through the center of the green star and squeeze
the whole flower gently to make it fluff.
3. Twist the pipe cleaners together to create a chain of flowers (opt).