What’s your favorite holiday flower? Today we’re showing you how to make a crepe paper version of a Christmas cactus. This way, you can enjoy it in full bloom for longer than just a few weeks! Follow our tutorial below to make your own version for the holiday season. Another great one to craft alongside this one is our crepe paper poinsettia.
Make Your Own Christmas Cactus
The Christmas cactus is the perfect plant to craft during fall or winter. We made our crepe paper Christmas cactus with traditional red flowers. But you could make your own version with pink, orange, yellow, or white flowers.
We crafted our crepe paper Christmas cactus to look just like the real thing—with flattened leaf-like stems that hang downwards and bright, colorful flowers.For the flowers, we used our extra fine crepe paper and for the stems we used our double-sided crepe paper. We also used art markers and Panpastels to color our petals and stamen.
If you make this Christmas cactus or one of our other holiday projects, we’d love to see it! Make sure to share your DIY creations with us using the hashtag #MadeWithLia. We may just repost it on our social pages or in our weekly email.
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Tools
- Cutting Machine (recommended)
- Scissors
- Micro-Tip Scissors
- Pinking Shears
- Paint Brush
- Pliers/Wire Cutters
- Curling Tool
Materials
- Lia Griffith Extra Fine Crepe Paper in Cherry (from Enchanted Garden Collection) and Linen (from Secret Garden Collection)
- Lia Griffith Double Sided Crepe Paper in Ferns + Moss
- Art Markers — Blick Studio Markers in Canary Yellow (014) and Magenta (077)
- PanPastels in Magenta
- Green Paper Covered Floral Wire — 24-Gauge
- Tacky Glue — Aleene’s Original
- Mod Podge
Instructions
- 1. Gather tools and materials.
- Using a paint brush, paint 4 sheets of 12×10” double sided green crepe paper with Mod Podge.
- Cut the crepe paper according to template notes using scissors or a cutting machine.
- Use tacky glue to attach the small piece of white crepe to the tip of a wire.
Full tutorial available for members. Join here.
Like This DIY Project?
Excited to make more crafts for the holidays? Make sure to browse our Thanksgiving projects as well as our Christmas crafts. If you’re just a fan of cacti plants in general, we have some other fun cactus crafts on our site, too.
To make this project and many more, become a member! As a member, you get access to all of our SVG cut files, PDF templates, and step-by-step instructions to make your own paper flowers, home décor, and more.
For video tutorials, stop by our YouTube channel. And for more DIY inspiration, follow us on Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Happy crafting! ~ Lia and team
12 Comments
Are both sides of the green paper painted with mod pudge, or just one?
Both sides but you will want to let the first side dry completely before painting the mod podge on side 2.
I am a member and all of a sudden I can not print
anything after my “password”. My computer won’t let me go any further.
I hope you understand me.
This is going on for a few weeks and I don’t know how to fix it.
Thank you
Marilyn Gruba (marilyngruba@aol.com
Hi Marilyn, can you email us with more details so we can help? hello@liagriffith.com
I just purchased the paper I need to make the Christmas Cactus. What kind of pot did you use?
Thanks, Shirley
Hi Shirley,
We used a small cement pot and spray painted it copper! 🙂
I am going to make this as a gift. I will need to ship it. Can I use a paper mache pot? If I use a cement pot the shipping will be a lot more. Any ideas what I can put in bottom of pot to keep it from falling over?
Thanks Shirley
Hi Shirley,
We would recommend gluing a few river rocks or coins in the bottom of the pot to weigh it down! 🙂
Hi I live in India. How can I become a member? Can you tell me the cost of membership in indian rupees.
We’d love you to join us! You can see our membership options here: https://liagriffith.com/membership/
I can’t wait to make this! Can you give me an idea of how many stems from each size are in your sample?
We put in about 30 stems to fill the pot we chose 🙂