What you need to make upcycled egg box flowers:
• Old egg boxes or egg trays
• Pipe cleaners
• Red and yellow acrylic paint
• Small paintbrush
• Scissors
• Craft knife
Step 1
Find two agreeable clean egg trays to use for your project.
Step 2
We are going to cut up our egg trays in various ways. Start by cutting out squares from the trays. Make about 6 of these. You can use a craft knife or a pair of scissors to cut these out.
Step 3
We need to cut out another 6 squares from our egg box, but this time we need to turn the tray upside down and cut out the shape below. You will see as you look at your egg tray there are many different ways to cut out different designs in the pattern of the egg boxes.
Also, all egg trays are not made the same, so if yours does not look exactly the these do, don't stress, I am sure you will be able to find interesting designs to cut out!
Step 4
Now, using a pair of scissors carefully cut away the excess card from the sides until we have a four petal flower, please note how we left the centre uncut? You will see why later.
Step 5
If you keep trimming away the petals of the last flower, you will get thinner inserts for your flowers like the following picture. We need to cut about four of these out. We are trying to make flowers that are all different and unique, and this is why we cut out so many different shapes from our paper egg trays.
Step 6
After we have a variety of shapes to choose from, we are going to assemble some of the flowers into others to see the various designs we can create.
Step 7
Once we have created our various designs we are going to paint our petals in red and yellow using the paintbrush and our acrylic paint. I have painted the inside petals in yellow and the ones that are going on the outside in red, but you can paint them in any colour you like.
Step 8
We are now going to make a small hole in the base of each set of petals to put the pipe cleaner through for the stem. Put your inner petal inside the flower and then push a pipe cleaner through the middle of the egg box petals to hold it all together.
Step 9
Once you have your pipe cleaner half way through your egg box flowers, gently fold the top of the pipe cleaner so that you have a twirl at the top. This will prevent the pipe cleaner from coming out and creates a pretty stamen for your flowers.
Step 10
Once all your flowers are painted and you have put the pipe cleaners in you are ready to do your upcycled flower arrangement.
Step 11
All that remains now is to find a nice vase and cut up some green leaves to place between your flowers to add colour and body to the upcycled flowers. This means that even in winter you can have stunning flowers on your desk as there is always some green in the garden but not much colour!
