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Welcome to the mish-mash in Puna's mind. Subjects may include crafts, crochet, knitting, scrapbooking, gaming, star wars, movies, killer bunnies, great and wonderful wizards named Tim, and pretty much anything else besides Taylor Lautner.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Monday Is The New Tuesday

So normally I would've had a post ready for everyone (or just Brent) to read last week Tuesday. Unfortunately, I spent my whole day making these flowers because I agreed to work on my day off.


Then I spent the rest of the week being completely thrown off because I was constantly two days behind in everything. Luckily it was for a good cause. Well, not really. It WAS free, though. Here's some step by steps just in case you want to learn too.


You need a lot of stuff for this project, all of which is in this picture. The list is floral tape, duct tape, some kind of round cylinder, non-stick scissors, wire cutters, stamens, londy wire (or thin floral wire), and all purpose thread. You can choose your own duct tape shade, and they now make a bunch of cool colors and patterns, so make sure it's a cute one.

 
You need something to make uniform circles out of wire. No, it doesn't have to be "craft twinkles". It can be that container of painkillers you've been hiding in your medicine cabinet because the dentist always gives them to you even though you just went in for your regular cleaning. You need five of them. Wire circles, not Lora-tab, that might be deadly.


Just give the circles a little tug so they're not so circley anymore. Think of tadpoles and those other little things that have tails and swim. Fish! Yea...fish.


The duct tape is happy because it finally gets to be put to good use by making something cute. Stick that wire petal to it. BTW, this is tie-dye duct tape in bright sunny colors.


You have to enfold your petal into the duct tape completely. (This is beginning to sound a little naughty.) Make sure both sides are covered nicely and there are no wrinkles. That is, unless you like wrinkles, naughty person. After that, you have to use non-stick scissors to cut around the wire part of the petal but leave a little space so the duct tape doesn't split open right at the seam.


Yes, there are places that sell fake flower stamens like this. They have the little stamen heads on both sides so you have to wrap them around one petal so both sides are sticking up. Yes, I did say to wrap the little heads around the petal so they stick up.


The stamens get sandwiched in between two petals and you use regular thread, doubled-up on itself, to wrap around the two petals and keep them together. If you wrap tight enough you won't have to knot the thread, it will stay put all on it's own. You're going to use a lot of thread so I suggest having a doubled up length of about three feet.


The other flower petals are inserted between the first two petals as shown, one from each side, and then the last one wherever you would like to stick it. However, when you start to wrap them up with thread, make sure that they all sit nicely, one on top of the other, like the picture below.


Wrap all the petals together (many, many, more times) with the thread, and then use floral tape to cover all the wire and thread. Hint: floral tape is only sticky when stretched, so you have to pull as you twist it around the wires to get it to work.


Unfold all the petals and pinch them between your thumb, pointer, and middle fingers to shape into something that resembles a flower. (All this talk about petals and pinching and shaping is making me blush.)


This is what the flower should look like when finished. To make smaller flowers like the little blue one in my first picture, just use a smaller form to make the petals. Try it with animal print duct tape too, they come out really cute.

Why was I making duct tape flowers, you ask? Well, because here in beautiful Hawaii, May Day is Lei Day. On Lei Day you teach people how to make leis. OK, not you exactly, but I do. I mean I teach people to make leis and you don't. You probably twirl girls around a Maypole or something. And anyway, I was SUPPOSED to teach people to make leis but other people were already doing that and I didn't just want to sit there and do the exact same thing. So I made duct tape flowers and then the other people gave me weird looks because I wasn't making leis. It's okay though, a lot of people liked the flowers, which is why I decided to post the instructions.

Um, this post went all kind of weird. I blame it on all the petal pinching and stamen head talk. And lack of sleep.

P. S. I didn't make this up, my friend Brandon did. You should buy some of his cupcakes to thank him for being such a creative crafter. Or just because his cupcakes are so delicioso.

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