How to Decorate for Any Party with Tissue Paper and Paper Lanterns

Tissue paper pom-poms and hanging paper lanterns are an excellent way to decorate your space easily and inexpensively. They work for any type of party, from birthday celebrations to baby/wedding showers, and can easily make a room feel festive with little time and/or effort. Lately, I’ve also been adding honeycomb balls and balloons into the mix and the result has been impressive yet ridiculously easy to execute.

I used this decorating technique for my son’s birthday party earlier this month, and chose colours that would also work well for Easter, ensuring I wouldn’t have to decorate twice. To start, I purchased paper lanterns and honeycomb balls in a variety of colours and patterns for less than $25. These items are packaged flat so they are easy to store, and they can easily be folded up and tucked away for use on a different day. I don’t mind investing in something that can be repurposed, and I try to choose colourful patterns that will suit a variety of occasions.

Next, I stocked up on basic balloons and tissue paper, selecting colours that matched my lanterns. While these items aren’t reusable, they are very inexpensive, and last for as long as you want to keep the decorations hanging.

To achieve the look I was going for, I staggered the lanterns around my space, and then filled in some of the gaps with the tissue paper pom-poms. To the mix, I added the honeycomb balls, and then I looked to see where I had some empty spaces and hung balloons in between all of the items to complete the decorating.

Here are a few tips to help you make this look work in your space:

• Choose a place where you can cluster a large number of items (over a table or in the centre of a room works well).
• Use as many lanterns, balls, pom-poms and balloons as you can. More is definitely more when it comes to this type of decorating.
• Hang the items at varying lengths so everything doesn’t fall at the same place. Some pieces should hang higher and/or lower than the others.
• Use a variety of colours, sizes and textures.
• To make the decorations look like they are floating, use invisible thread for hanging.

Here’s our step-by-step tutorial on making your own tissue paper pom-poms.