Seasons > Mother’s Day > Mother’s Day Decorations > Waterlily napkin centerpiece
Make a napkin into a waterlily by opening it up to it’s full size, then fold each corner into the middle. Note: if you do not have colored napkins, stack 2 sheets of colored tissue paper for each flower so you can have layers of petals. Cut the paper into 30 cm. squares.
Once all the corners are folded to the middle, fold the new corners to the middle, too.
Flip it over to the back side (being careful not to let any corners pop open again), and fold those new corners to the middle, too.
Gently lift each corner, and pull the corner out from underneath, to form a petal. Do this for each corner to form 4 petals.
Finally, between each of the petals, reach underneath and pull the corners to the top to form more petals. Hold the center down with your other hand to keep the flower’s shape as you do this.
Optional step to make them look even more like waterlilies: Add yellow centers to the flowers. Cut a strip of yellow paper a couple of inches wide, the length of the paper. Fold it in half the long way so it is about an inch wide. Cut slits on the cut side, not the folded side. Wrap the paper around a pencil and splay the strips out with your fingers. Slide it off the pencil and drop it into the middle of a lotus flower napkin. If you want to keep a tight coil, tape the end of the yellow strip before sliding it off the pencil.
Cut green circles to form water lily leaves. Use cups, saucers, or lids as patterns to cut different sizes of circles. Cut a notch out of each one. Arrange the circles between the flowers.
If you don’t have a blue table runner, you can use a blue scarf, blue paper, or line up a row of blue placemats.
This pretty waterlily centerpiece is perfect for Mothers Day, and the best part is that only costs pennies to make. See step by step instructions for napkin folding below. You can also make the “Happy Mother’s Day” banner, and use it again every year. Party stores seem to sell banners for every occasion except for Mother’s Day! But now you can make one to decorate for Mother’s Day!
Once you get the hang of folding the napkins, it doesn’t take that long to fold, so you could even fold one for each place setting. If that sounds like too much work, then just fold the flowers for the centerpiece. Even so, it probably takes less time to fold the napkins and cut the lily pads, than to go out and buy a bouquet of fresh flowers. And for sure, this costs a lot less!!
How to fold waterlily napkins