Paper Tea Party Set!

Today we are making a Tea Party Set out of paper/cardstock.

Tea Party Set includes:

Tea Cup

Saucer

Tea pot

Vase

This is my first instructable, and am working very last minute to get it done so please bear with me.

This will be very minimal outline on creating a Tea Party set from strips of paper, feel free to use it as a template idea to build your own fantastical creations on.

Pencil

Ruler

Scissors

Tape

Flexibility, Creativity and Imagination

PART 1

Take your sheet of paper, and simply use the width of your ruler as a spacer between each line you create.

Line the bottom edge of the ruler with the bottom line of your sheet of paper and run your pencil along the top edge of the ruler

Slide the ruler up so the bottom of the ruler lines up with the top edge of the line you marked, then mark again along the top.

Do this all the way up until you run out of paper.

Then cut along all the lines.

PART 2

Take two pieces and place one parallel on the table in front of you. Stick a piece of tape in the middle and attach a second strip perpendicular to the first one.

Keep placing a rolled up piece of tape in the center over and over again as you attach new strips in diagonals until a Sunburst of strips has been created.

Think cup when you do this next step. Requires a little bit of finagling and manipulating to gather pieces while taping.

Grab two ends and pull them upwards while leaving the base flat on the table. Let them overlap slightly and tape them together.

Add another strip to the previous piece and tape again.

Repeat this process until all flat strips are now raised up and taped together creating a cup shape.

Bend and fold the top edges down and tape to the inside of the cup to give it a smooth edge

(You can see a finished up in the the background)

Next I just eye balled the cup and cut out a circle I thought would make for a good sized base (This is where creativity and imagination come into play...I use this a lot because I have no measurements)

First cut a circle of desired size

Then fold in half and then fold both corners in towards the center bottom. this will give you diagonal folds

Unfold and place a dot in center

Draw a square around the dot, roughly .5 inch on each side of dot

Use this mark as a guide when you cut slits into the circle as a stopping point.

Next cut four slits on the diagonal towards center

Overlap the edges bringing them towards the center fold and taping them together to create a raised base

If it creates a cone shaped, manipulate the paper to create a flat surface in the center

Turn base over and fold edges to create a smooth lip and tape

Take a strip of paper and twist

(Creativity) Bend the long strip into a windy handle (Image not shown because I lost it in the upload)

Place piece of tape on base and attach cup

Place piece of tape on handle and attach to cup

Once all pieces are attached feel free to bend the bottom curve of the cup to widen it and give it a more pillowy appearance by pushing downwards and bending the bottom of the cup over the base. (Step shown in image during tea pot construction

Create a sunburst like in the first step of creating the tea cup

Place finished up in center of sunburst for measurement

Grab end of one strip and fold in slightly towards center and use a piece of tape to hold edge down

Repeat this step with remaining strips to create lip of saucer

I just lined it up to create an edge all the way around where I thought the lip of the saucer would be

I used old cardstock menus from a restaurant to create this Tea cup set. I am all about upcycling and reusing old items to create new fun crafts

This series of images just shows you how the cardstock looks. It's much nicer to work with and holds the shape better.

For the teapot you will use two sheets of paper to create the body

This time you will attach two strips together together with tape to create one long strip

Repeat the same basic construction steps as previously done in the Teacup and Saucer

Attach all strips to create giant starbust

Begin by using same method in creating teacup-Think as if you were creating a giant sized teacupO

Pull up all strip ends to create cup shape

For this base I used a bigger piece of paper and left it rectangle

Used same method as circle base for teacup by folding in half and on diagonals

-then creating a square in middle

-cutting slits towards center then overlapping edges and taping to create a raised base

Place tape on base and attaching Giant cup shape to base

Here is where i manipulated the shape by pushing down on the top and bending the bottom curve to create a more bowled out shape

For this I used half the size of the sheet of paper I used to make the Teacup

I used the same method for making the Teacup/Teapot to create the cup shape for the cover

Create a sunburst out of strips

Create the cup and turn upside down

Fit the upside down cup into top of tea pot so it fits on top but doesn't fall through

Begin taping the edges to hold the shape

Take out topper, fold bottom edges in to create smooth lip

The last three images showed how I manipulated the top to create a more fun shape

I pushed down in the middle and bent the middle all the way around in the shape of a chefs hat to give a more styled shape

For the handle I used one strip of cardstock (Here's where the creativity comes in!)

and just twisted it around in a fun shape and used tape to hold it until it looked how I wanted it

I recommend just playing around with it until you see a shape form that you like

Then attach it to the top

Here is another "Use the imagination" moment

To create the spout, I simply cut and used about 3-4 strips and curled them and used tape to hold them and just eyeballed a shape that resembled the spout

And then used tape to attach it to the Teapot

(Notice the spout is different in the end. Sadly the cardstock was to heavy and kept tipping the teapot over so I just used printer paper to create the final one.)

Also the original spout ended up being a ridiculously huge size so it was for the best...now that I look at the final one it looks ridiculous as well. Oh well! Just adds to the fun!

For this step you repeat what you did with the teapot

Make the strips twice as long as the ones you used for the teacup and saucer

This time, when you gather them, just gather all strips at the top to create a hourglass like center so it's narrow at top and opens up as it goes downwards towards the base

The second image shows how I gathered the strips so that they formed a nice simple square for you to slide flowers into

Tape all around the square to hold its shape

I used the same base set up as the Teapot, only this time,I made the base even bigger and I folded the four corners in to give it a rounded design

Here is the created "skeleton" version of the tea party items!

I placed the template for the basic paper teacup along with the cardstock teacup with both the vase and tea pot in the background

I scattered a couple of cardstock paper flowers around for fun. My original plan was to show you how to make the cardstock flowers and attach them to stems to place in the vase, but I ran out of time :/

I took one of the original cups you saw in the background of the images when I was creating the teacup and spray painted it black and painted a rose as well. Just to give it a fun look and I really enjoyed it

My original hope was to really go all out and not just create the paper strip version of a tea set but to in fact, paper mache a set, use plaster of paris to really cement the shape and go over it in clay to smooth it out and finish with acrylic painting drips along the edges of everything as well as do some modge podge transferring from printed images onto the sides of all the finished pieces.

Use this as a base set up to start your creations. Throw a party where everyone creates their own Tea set and have fun with it.

I plan to use this template for another fun challenge coming up as well as just to create because I really enjoyed it!

I hope this instructable made sense and was easy to understand and I hope you can enjoy it and build further on the basics to make something truly magical and creative!

Have fun!