Michaels Class: Paper Flower in a Pot for Mother's Day

We had a class on making a flower for Mom at Michaels.  It was another easy craft.

Needed items:  flower-colored card stock paper (I used Recollections Brights colorway), 2-inch clay flower pot, acrylic craft paint, hot glue gun and glue sticks, pencils with eraser ends, scissors.

The first thing you do is cut a strip of the paper 2 inches wide and start wrapping and overlapping it around a pencil to make a tube.  At the end of the tube insert a little hot glue on the inside of the flap and hold it down until it dries.  BE CAREFUL.  It really is hot, thus the "hot glue" in the title.  Remove the tube from the pencil and let dry completely.  You are going to glue the petals around this tube.  My tube was around 5 inches long.  For this size plant pot, you don't want it much longer, and maybe want it an inch or more shorter.  Give it a try. If you make one, let me know what worked best for you.

Cut out 3 long-ish, thin petals and fold them in half.  Using the hot glue on one end of each petal, insert them alternately into one end of the tube.

First try at making this flower.  I may try again to make it more full.  You can barely see the decorated pot rim.

Cut out 16-20 larger flower petals  Run the petals  through your thumb and index finger or around a pencil to make them curve.  With hot glue on the non-curved end of each petal, attach them, staggered, around the tube.  You will do a better job than I did.  The more petals, the fuller the blossom will be.

Final step is to cut 3 leaves from green paper.  These are similar to the large flower petals, but cut them a bit larger and have one end be blunt...maybe half an inch wide.  Curl these three leaves as well and glue to the bottom of the flower "stem".

Put some acrylic craft paint into a small palette or on a plate.  Using the eraser end of your pencil dab a little paint onto the eraser then daub it onto the rim of the plant pot in whatever pattern you like. I chose three colors and put them on in order around the rim, one color at a time, leaving room for the other two colors.  It would probably be smart to let the paint dry between colors....