Art Projects!

Today's post isn't about cooking, it's about some super easy art projects I did yesterday to celebrate my birthday! I love decorating and doing nice things for myself, so these projects were right up my alley. Not to mention that they completely give in to my love of office supplies!

The first project was flower pens. They are exactly what they sound like. I love this project because it creates a functional centerpiece or desk decoration. To make them, you buy fake flowers, cheap pens (with caps, not the clicky kind), and floral tape (it's green). Then you cut the stems on the flowers so that they are a little shorter than the pens, and wrap the tape around both until they are secure and the pen looks like part of the stem. It's up to you how much the flower hangs over the end, but with my flowers I found it easier to just go up to the top.

I found a cool idea on this website that suggested putting your flower pens in a vase or flower pot with floral beads. I already had the beads from a previous project, so I decided to go this route. I was going to paint the pot as well, but I think it looks cute with it just plain.

This project was really cheap as well. The pens were $2.50 for 50, the bouquets were $8 each from Michaels (with about 12 flowers per bunch), the floral tape was $1/roll, and the pots were about $1 each. My friend Tanya and I shared everything, which made it even cheaper.

Here's how they turned out:

Mine

Tanya's

Since we still had a TON of clear capped pens left over, we decided to jazz them up and make colored pens as well. All you have to do it open the pen up, roll paper around the ink stick, tape it down on the ends, and put it back in the pen. It took a lot longer than it should have because we originally tried to use paper that was too thick, but we finally figured it out. We discovered that colored tissue paper works great for this because it's thin, easy to roll, and comes in tons of colors. Tanya stuck to the pastels while I went for hot pinks and purples. This one was my favorite because it has an almost metallic sheen to it (even though the paper was just regular purple). We easily used up the rest of our jumbo pack of pens this way.

While we were getting supplies from Target, Tanya and I decided to add a third project to the list. We found lined straw tote bags in the dollar section (they were $2.50, but still incredibly cheap) and figured out ways to jazz them up. Tanya bought patterned ribbon (also from that section and only $1) and I chose to decorate with flowers (yes, there's a theme here). The flowers I picked were silk orchids that we found in the decor section (only $5). I bent the stalk and fastened it to the bag using hot glue. I think it came out really classy!

If you decide to do this project at home, I highly recommend cutting off the excess stem before trying to attach the flowers and then gluing the ends first (starting with the bottom one). When working with hot glue, it's important to hold the two pieces together until they dry so that they attach properly. Once the ends are secure, you can use the glue gun to trace a line of glue under the stem so that everything stays in place.

Maybe yesterday was more like my 12th birthday than my 23rd, but so what? There's no age limit to having fun making stuff :)