How to Make A Flower From Recycled Materials

It is both creative and rewarding to make a beautiful object from materials that you would otherwise discard, or that you can easily find around the house. Doing so requires a bit of ingenuity, but the results can be surprising and delightful. The list of items to make from recycled materials is virtually endless, but flowers are a good place to start. Beloved when they are fresh, they are even more charming when they are fashioned metal cans, wire hangers, and stray buttons. Follow these steps to make a flower from recycled materials.

Things You'll Need

• Empty produce can
• Wire hanger
• Can opener
• Tin snips
• Leather mallet
• Thin, felt-tipped marker
• Heavy-duty scissors
• Hammer
• Nail
• Sandpaper
• Stray button

Instructions

Making a Flower from Recycled Materials

1. Peel the label from a produce can. Wash and dry the can thoroughly.

2. Remove the bottom of the can with a can opener. If the top has not been completely removed, take that off as well. Set aside both the top and bottom of the can. You will be left with a hollow cylinder.

3. Cut down the side of the cylinder. Carefully open the cylinder and bend the metal back until it lies relatively flat. Hammer the metal with a leather mallet to achieve a more flat surface. The idea is to have a metal square on which you can draw.

4. Draw a large flower on the metal with a marker. Make the flower any shape, size and style you desire. A basic five-petaled daisy with a round center may be a good flower to start with. Do not draw a stem; you will make one with wire.

5. Cut the flower out of the metal with scissors.

6. Sand the sharp edges of the flower until they are smooth.

7. Hammer a single nail into the center of the flower to make a hole. Remove the nail.

8. Unbend a wire hanger until you have a relatively straight length of wire. Cut it with tin snips so you have a piece of wire approximately 10-to-12 inches long.

9. Insert the wire into the hole at the center of the flower. Approach the hole from the underside of the flower and push the wire through from the below.

10. Choose a button with at least two holes. Position the button on the center of the flower.

11. Push the wire up through one buttonhole and back down through the other buttonhole. Then pull it back through the original hole in the center of the flower.

12. Twist the two wires that you now have hanging below the flower around each other to form a single, durable stem and prevent the head of the flower from sliding down.

13. Bend the flower's petals up, down or slightly to one side or the other to give the bloom dimension and a sense of movement.

14. Recycle several wire hangers, buttons, and metal cans into flowers until you have a generous bouquet to display in a vase.

Tips & Warnings

• Save the tops and bottoms of metal cans and use them to make simple, round blooms. Or make 1-inch cuts around their edges and bend the resulting strips forward or back to suggest petals.

• For more color and interest, cut out metal flowers from colorfully printed, vintage cookie and cracker tins.

References

• "Tin Craft: A Workbook"; Fern Rae Abraham, 1994