A Home for Paper Flowers

As I mentioned late last month, I've been working on cleaning the office in our apartment. In order to make room in a closet for a stack of records, I had to relocate a box of unfinished paper flowers. These flowers have quite a history. Basically, I went crazy about the decorations for my wedding. Erik and I were married at the Fuller Craft Museum. Subsequently, I decided that I wanted the decorations for our wedding to have a crafty feel. I researched every different kind of paper flower I could find on the internet, in books, by word of mouth--anything. I found directions for origami flowers and began making about a million of them to put together in bouquets for table centerpieces. A few months into this endeavor, I realized that I probably would not have enough time, even with the extraordinary help of my friends, to make ten bouquets. I settled on another paper flower idea, which still took quite some time, but made more sense for the centerpieces. I ended up making an origami flower bouquet for the table where Erik and I sat at the wedding.

Wreath for guest centerpiece

Snazz centerpiece for me & Erik

Months later, I still have about a million origami petals and flowers to use up. They were living in above said box in said closet. This weekend, I decided that I would make a new container for these petals that I could look at on a daily basis in my living room. I've wanted to make a basket from magazine pages since I saw a picture of one in The Big Ass Book of Crafts. If you're interested in looking at specific directions for how to make this basket, and for general crafty joy, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of The Big Ass Book of Crafts. Below is a description of how I made my basket.

To begin, I cut magazine pages from two Martha Stewart Living magazines into thirds. You can use any magazine you want. I just happened to have these on hand. The pages are nice and wide, too, so you get more strips from them.

Next, I grabbed a bamboo skewer from our utensil drawer. I picked up a paper strip and, starting at a corner, rolled the paper around the skewer until I made a straw shape.

I used Sobo Craft Glue to glue the last corner around the straw.

I then flattened the straw. Smoosh!

After flattening the straw, I wrapped it tightly around a pencil.

Holding the now curled straw, I slid it off the pencil and allowed it to loosen a bit. I then hot glued the end of the straw to the newly made ring.

I made probably about 600 of these rings. I watched a lot of Grey's Anatomy while doing this. You can watch whatever show you like while making these. It should not be something that requires you actually pay attention, though.

I chose a decent sized trashcan as a form to place the rings around. I hot glued the rings together starting at the base of the trashcan.

I went around and around the trashcan gluing the rings together. More Grey's Anatomy was watched.

For the bottom of the basket, I hot glued many, many more flat straws in a spiral until it was the correct size. I removed the trashcan from the center of the rings and glued the rings to the spiral. I painted Mod Podge on the inside of the basket to help hold it together.

Here is a rather shadowy picture of the finished basket!

Here is a more colorful picture of the inside of the basket.

So far, it has held together pretty well. I haven't picked it up and swung it around, and I try to carry it by the base. It fits all of the flower petals, and it is quite pleasing to the eye. I'm already thinking of the next one I'll make!