D.I.Y

So a couple months ago I posted pictures on facebook,of a few projects I have done the past year. I got an overwhelming response to them.People wanting me to make some for them, others wanting to know how to do it themselves. So since I don't have enough time to make these things for people right now I will just show you how to D.I.Y! So here it goes, my very first tutorial! Hopefully this makes sense to more than just myself, but if not feel free to ask questions.

   I chose the "flower balls" as my first tutorial because they are the easiest. Which is also something you have to understand. If it's not something I can do with my glue gun during nap time, I don't do it. So all my projects are way easy.

Flower Balls

(not the best name, but I can't come up with anything else.)

When I made the flower balls for Grace's room I used medium/small Styrofoam balls, and silk flowers. Since I forgot to to take pictures while I was doing that project, I had to make more. This time I wanted to be cheaper, since it was just for this tutorial. So you can either do it the way I show here for swap out a few materials.

These are the materials I used for this project.

1. Newspaper balled up with packing tape securing it.(Instead of styrofoam balls)

2.About 75-100 cute cupcake liners (instead of silk flowers)

3. Skewer (if you want to do this project you need it, but if doing the hanging flower balls you don't)

4.Hot glue gun and lots of glue sticks!

5.A cute bucket (again, only for this project)

6. Paint, and paint brush for stem (only for this project)

7. Ribbon of your choice for the hanging flower balls.

Crunch the cupcake liner up so it looks like this, and I found it worked better if I bent the end. It made it easier to glue it on the newspaper ball. If you are doing the project with the silk flowers, please don't crunch them (ha ha)

Just put a dab of glue on the ball, or on the flower/liner whatever tickles your fancy and secure it on the ball. Keep doing this over and over, making sure the flowers/liners are nice a cozy together. With the hanging project I bought two different colours of flowers and made a pattern on the ball (eg- a line of pink, a line of green, mixed with white...)

Keep going, and going. It feels like you will never be done, but it's very worth it in the end. So cute. Make sure you leave a space to put either a skewer in the bottom or if you are doing the hanging project loop a piece of ribbon and hot glue gun that on the bottom (which will become the top).

This is about when I put the skewer in, to make sure I could work around it and make sure there was no spaces.

Finish up the bottom and then put some beans or newspaper or whatever you want in the bucket to hold the ball and place the ball with the skewer in the bucket. If you are doing the hanging balls though, don't worry about this step, you should be ready to hang your finished product! I also forgot to mention that if you are doing the hanging ones it looks best in groups of 3. I did 1 bigger one and 2 smaller ones.

Ta-da! You now have a cute topiary or some way cute hanging flower balls! Enjoy!