Handmade Sunflowers
I'm always looking for fun ways to make gifts for teachers or family members. Last year we made these handmade sunflowers for Michael's teachers during Teacher's Appreciation week. You could make these for pretty much anything and is such a great keepsake. Here's how I made the flowers (look for a post about how to make the vases soon).
yellow scrapbook paper
green pipe cleaners
sunflower seeds
ribbon
scissors
glue
I decided to make a template of Michael's hand. As a parent you know that kids, especially a 4 year old, would have no patience to sit and let you trace their hands more than once. I just used a card board box to make a strong template.
Now that you have the template, you'll want to trace out the hand which will be the peddles of the sunflowers. The amount of hands will depend on how big your child's hand is. After tracing out the hands, you'll want to cut them out.
Take your cut out hands and just fan them out until you have the desired look you're looking for. Once you like the layout, start gluing them together. I ended up using 5 hands per sunflower.
After I had glued the hands together, I realized that it didn't seem like it was going to be sturdy enough for the sunflower seeds. I decided to trace out the circle shape of my ribbon container to help make the center a little more sturdy.
Cut and glue the circle to the center of your flower.
You can wait to let everything dry or just go for it like I did and start gluing the sunflower seeds to the center of the flower. I used craft glue and lots of it. I also tried to put the seeds as close as possible, but keeping as much of the seed in the glue. Be patient and go a section at a time.
Once you've got the center of the flower covered in seeds, set it aside and let it dry.
After the glue has dried, you'll want to flip you flower over. Take a green pipe cleaner and glue it to the back of the flower. Let it dry before picking up.
The pipe cleaners were not sturdy enough in the vases I put them in. Even after bending them. I ended up buying these floral picks which gave the stems the support they needed to stay up. If you're just going to hand them as a bouquet, maybe gluing 2 pipe cleaners to each flower might work. If not, these sticks will do the trick.
Since these were for Michael's teachers, we added a little note that said, "Thank you for helping me grow!" If you do a bouquet, you could tie the little note to the bundled up stems. Michael's teachers absolutely loved them. Even though Teacher's Appreciation week is long gone, I think we might make these again for an end of the year gift for Michael's teachers this year.
What you'll need:
yellow scrapbook paper
green pipe cleaners
sunflower seeds
ribbon
scissors
glue
I decided to make a template of Michael's hand. As a parent you know that kids, especially a 4 year old, would have no patience to sit and let you trace their hands more than once. I just used a card board box to make a strong template.
Now that you have the template, you'll want to trace out the hand which will be the peddles of the sunflowers. The amount of hands will depend on how big your child's hand is. After tracing out the hands, you'll want to cut them out.
Take your cut out hands and just fan them out until you have the desired look you're looking for. Once you like the layout, start gluing them together. I ended up using 5 hands per sunflower.
After I had glued the hands together, I realized that it didn't seem like it was going to be sturdy enough for the sunflower seeds. I decided to trace out the circle shape of my ribbon container to help make the center a little more sturdy.
Cut and glue the circle to the center of your flower.
You can wait to let everything dry or just go for it like I did and start gluing the sunflower seeds to the center of the flower. I used craft glue and lots of it. I also tried to put the seeds as close as possible, but keeping as much of the seed in the glue. Be patient and go a section at a time.
Once you've got the center of the flower covered in seeds, set it aside and let it dry.
After the glue has dried, you'll want to flip you flower over. Take a green pipe cleaner and glue it to the back of the flower. Let it dry before picking up.
The pipe cleaners were not sturdy enough in the vases I put them in. Even after bending them. I ended up buying these floral picks which gave the stems the support they needed to stay up. If you're just going to hand them as a bouquet, maybe gluing 2 pipe cleaners to each flower might work. If not, these sticks will do the trick.
Since these were for Michael's teachers, we added a little note that said, "Thank you for helping me grow!" If you do a bouquet, you could tie the little note to the bundled up stems. Michael's teachers absolutely loved them. Even though Teacher's Appreciation week is long gone, I think we might make these again for an end of the year gift for Michael's teachers this year.
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