Day of the Dead dinner party

My friends Heather and Matt host a Day of the Dead dinner party each year and this year, since they were expecting nearly 30 family and friends to attend, Heather asked me to help her out with place settings. I immediately knew that I wanted to do something that would enhance the vibrant colors and tradition of this Mexican holiday, so I came up with simple Mexican paper flowers, and to make it even easier, I had all the supplies needed to make them.

All you need are three things: tissue paper in bright colors, scissors, and a stapler:

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There's a super easy and quick tutorial on how to make these over on 100 Layer Cake, but since I was making these as place settings, I had to keep them small, so mine didn't come out looking quite as fancy. I assembled all the flowers at once, mostly because it's a lot easier to get the accordion style folds done and out of the way, since pulling the tissue paper apart is the funnest aspect:

Then, I carefully pulled each of them apart (be especially careful if you make small flowers because the tissue paper is very vulnerable at the center) and affixed each flower with a name tag:

The dinner party was a huge success: the food was out of this world (Heather and Matt spend days prepping the enchiladas, beans, and rice), the decorations were incredible, and the place settings were a hit!

photography: h&a happenings

venue: private residence