With little more than a roll of toilet tissue.. (sure why not!!) and some glue you can make some fabulous art or gift decorations from these hand rolled flowers.
Once you get the knack we know you'll be addicted to making these fun little pieces. They come out lovely and white but if you want to paint your handrollled flowers like we did, its as a super use of paint pot samples/ non toxic glue for the kiddos. As the tissue is so white any paint colours come out fantastically.
Heres some ideas of what you can make...
Who'd think in a few easy steps you'll end up making toilet paper (ugggh) into art (ooooh)!
What you'll need:
Toilet tissue - one roll will make about 40 flowers (depending on size)
PVA glue/ Prit stick - even just sellotape would do, or craftea homemade glue (see our blog post from June)
Non stick mat/ chopping board or plate
Optional - spray glue, paint (paint pot samples or kiddo friendly non-toxic paint)
Note: Fabric would work just as well if not better for these rolled flowers.. you'd need a glue gun or fabric glue. We'll do a separate tutorial on this soon. Cheap and cheerful.. why not start practising your flowers with toilet tissue first.
Heres how to make the hand-rolled flowers:
Theres a knack to this but its pretty easy.. plus you cant go wrong practising on toilet tissue paper which is super cheap and recyclable.
Start by pinching the end of the roll and twisting it up so theres a firmly twisted strip of about 1cm. Twist more paper around it flattening as you go.
Once you have a circular shape evolving, begin to layer the folds over the last layer wrapped around the layer before that. Twist the tissue paper as you go around... every inch or so turn the tissue paper over like in the picture above...This gives it a rose petal effect and helps secure the tissue. By compressing the rolled tissue you'll help secure the rolled flower so it wont unravel.
Keep going. If your unhappy with how its looking dont worry.. keep folding the latest layer over the other and twist as you go. So quickly you'll see a rose petal emerging. Plus, if you dont like it, unravel the layers and start again. Or squidge it up a bit.. who knows with some handling what shape it will ultimately appear like.
When you get to the size of the flower you are happy with tear off the paper sheet from the roll and stick it under the flower. In a small bowl, mix up a teaspoon of PVA glue/ modge podge to a teaspoon of water and let the tissue paper flower soak up that glue. Alternatively if you have prit stick or a piece of sellotape do whatever works to keep the rolled flower together from underneath.
But if your using a glue mixture...You'll only need to brush on a tiny bit of glue mix brushed onto the rolls or in the saucer to hold it together underneath to ensure the flower sticks together and wont unravel. Dont go mad or you'll just end up with a soggy lump of tissue!
Leave to dry on a chopping board or on plate / greaseproof paper - somewhere it wont stick. Brush the top of the flower with the glue mix so that the flower holds its shape on top too. You may not even need to do this.. the rougher/cheaper the toilet paper the better it holds its shape as a rolled flower.
Alternatively you can spray with glue on the top and bottom.
Just too tempting to keep them white... how good would this look on the wall of a modern bathroom!
Keep trucking making the flowers until you have enough for your end product.
Admittedly, though it can be fustrating at the start before you nail the rolled flowers... its really relaxing to do.
.... Once you have your collection complete and dry you can either admire the lovely whiteness of the flowers or get painting them! As we have 100 paint sample pots to use up.. so here goes...
I loved this colour combination of warm red, pink, brown and creamy yellow.. so decided put it to use on a cheap canvas. I painted my canvas in the creamy yellow colour and then pencilled in a twirly tree dresign on the canvas. I got some inspiration from pictures like this that I found on pinterest.com
Before deciding what to paint as a 'note' on my canvas I tested it out with some photo tools on Picassa ... what do you think of my rolled tissue paper tree being a 'Welcome' Canvas to hang in a hallway?
The possibilities are endless with these cheap and cheerful handrolled tissue paper flowers. Who'd guess they once were a plain old piece of toilet roll??!!!!
Its so hard to stop at one idea.. I kept going with some other colours of paint and even glitter spray to make a cute birthday present wrapping and card...
Have fun with this and keep us posted with what you come up with!