Make an easy up-cycled flower craft
Learn how to make a flower out of an empty toilet paper roll. This is an easy and fun craft! I always feel a touch guilty for throwing away empty toilet paper rolls. It always seems like there must be something I can do with them. Well, now I finally have a cute way to up-cycle these empty toilet paper rolls into something beautiful.
I gotta say, this craft is a pretty big hit with the kids too! My kids adore these flowers and can’t stop playing with them. They love them almost as much as they love cloud dough.
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Supplies
- 1 Empty toilet paper roll per flower
- Ruler
- Pencil
- Scissors
- Hot glue stick & glue gun
- Acrylic paint (green and one more color of your choice for the flower)
- Paint tray (can be as simple as a paper plate)
- Paint brush
- 1 Skewer per flower
Crafting Prep
You’ll want to make sure you do this in a place that you won’t mind if paint splatters or spills. I laid down a disposable table cloth to protect my work space for this project. I also did this for my glowing flowers and find it to be a good practice when using paint.
Flower Petals
To prepare the empty toilet paper roll, place the ruler against the roll and mark every 3/4″ along the roll.
A Toilet paper roll is generally close to 4 inches long and this will divide it into five pieces. (The last piece will have about an extra 1/4″ you can mark and cut off if you want to have all the pieces even.)
Fold the toilet paper roll in half and cut sections off using the marks you just made as a guide.
Set the five pieces to the side and now we are ready to prep the stem.
Flower Stem
In general I find the skewer to be a little bit long for the size stem I want, so I trim it down. You can keep it at whatever length you like.
If you want to make it the same size as me measure about 2 to 2 1/2″ down from the top of the skewer. Take your scissors and saw at the skewer with them.
After you’ve sawed at it for a minute, you can apply pressure to the sawed area with your fingers and it will snap the tip off.
I like to take off the sharp end off the skewer because I let my kids play with them and I don’t want anyone to get hurt. However, the sharp tip could be useful if you wanted to stick it in the ground or floral foam.
Painting the Pieces
Choose the color paint that you want your flower to be and paint each of the five toilet paper roll pieces that color. Let them dry. When you come back to them, you can decide if you want to give them an additional coat of paint to make them more vibrant.
Take the skewer and paint the whole thing green. Set it aside and let it dry.
Assembling the Flower Petals
Once all the petal pieces are dry, place them in a circle on their edges, arranging them to look like a flower.
If you’re having a hard time getting the petals to sit close to each other in the center, pinch one end of each petal hard to make a more crisp fold in the petal.
Using a hot glue gun, take one of the petal pieces and place glue on both sides near the bottom.
Put the petal back in its arranged place so the glue is touching the next two petal pieces in the arrangement.
Press the pieces together so the glue adheres all three petals to each other.
Take the already glued petals and place glue on both sides of the bottom. (Close to the center.)
Return those petals to the flower arrangement and press the remaining two petals into the glue.
You should now have just one space at the bottom of the petals that isn’t glued yet.
Adding the Flower Stem
Put a generous amount of hot glue in the final space between the last petals that haven’t been glued yet.
Place the skewer in the center of the glue and press the petals together.
I like to press the edges together to help enclose the skewer so it’s not seen from the front or back. (If you do this part, be careful. It’s hot!)
If you feel like your flower is gapping too much, you can go back in with the glue gun and glue the petals closer together in the center.
Once the glue has cooled down, the flower is done!
Final Thoughts on Flower from Toilet Paper Rolls
I love how easy this project is to make and my kids keep begging me for more of them. It’s such a great and fun way to recycle. I hope you enjoy this craft project as much as I do. Thank you for reading!
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