COOL FLOWERS MADE FROM RECYCLED PLASTIC MILK JUGS AND OTHER PLASTIC CONTAINERS

It's a beautiful snowy day, parents and kids home from work and school. What a great day to have some craft time with the kids!! You will be recycling plastic milk jugs, deli containers and other plastics to make these really awsome flowers. This is my first craft post. Let me know if there is some part of the directions that need clarification. I'll try my best!

Since flowers are a reoccuring theme in my amazingly fun, delightfully whimsical paintings, I thought it would be fun to make some in 3-D. Don't forget, you can see more paintings at artatdragonhill.com.

This is definately a project that needs adult help, but isn't that part of the fun, working with your child, grandchild, or in my case, incredible greatest nieces?

You will need: Washed milk jug, deli container and/or other plastic container,

Thin-point permanent marker,Acrylic paints, water container for rinsing brushes and brushes, Kraft Knife (for adult use only) and scissors,Wooden dowel or something else sturdy and thin to be used as a stem,Floral tape, piece of ribbon, pencil with new eraser end.

Remove labels and dry plastic. With the permanent marker, draw three flower shapes onto plastic, small, medium and large. (My largest flower shape is 7" dia.)

Also draw two leaf shapes with a tab that can be tucked under the floral tape when being attached to stem. In addition, draw a 1" circle to be used as the center of the flower.

ADULT HELP NEED HERE: Using craft knife or scissors, cut the shapes off of the containers. Cut an X into the center of each flower piece so it can be slipped onto the dowel. Now you can give the shapes to your child to finish the cutting with scissors.

Now comes the fun part!! Using acrylic paints, paint each of the pedal pieces a different color. TIP: The paints may be pretty transparent. Use a dab of white mixed in with each color with make it more opaque and give better coverage.

You can also add a decorative element to the pedals. I used the pencil eraser to "stamp" red paint dots onto the yellow pedals. Allow to dry completely before putting on the stem.

Slide the largest flower piece onto the dowel, next the medium and then the small. Tie the ribbon around the stem under the flower pedals. Wrap a piece of floral tape around the stem under the large pedal. Wrap several times around the dowel to keep the pedals from sliding down the dowel. Now begin wrapping tape diabonally down the stem, stretching as you go. Add leaves were desired by slipping the tabs under the tape and reinforcing with an extra round or two of tape.

Glue the round piece on top end of the dowel (I actually had a cute button that I used instead.)

This seems way more complicated that it really is! The hard part of waiting for the paint to dry!! Place your flower in a glass vase or jar and enjoy.

Okay, last but not least, I can see that I need to learn how to add images so that they have a logical order! Like snail says, I"LL TRY, I'LL TRY.