Heather Shore: July 2011 Archives
Looking for a way to keep your pens from wandering off your desk? I have the perfect project for you! You can make your own flower pens and decorate an ordinary glass vase. This is a project that will take you a couple of hours if you have all the supplies on hand. Perfect to catch up on a couple Harry Potter DVDs.
Glass vase:
You are going to need a roll of plain masking tape, brown
shoe polish and a glass vase. Although we don't sell these products at Fabric.com
(today), I have these items around my place.
Tear off strips of tape from the roll and start applying to
the outside of the vase. Do not place the tape inside of the vase. I tried to
have some overlap between pieces of tape - it will give you more of a textured
look at the end. I also covered the bottom of my vase with tape for one example
and did not cover for another.
Once you have covered the vase in tape strips, you are ready
to use the shoe polish. Start dabbing on the taped part of the vase. Do not rub
against the vase, because you will pull up the tape. All my vases have required
two coats of shoe polish to give it a darker look. Some of my other ideas to
use this for would be light color fabric and adhere the fabric to the glass or
acrylic paint on the vase instead of shoe polish - good luck!
Flower pens:
You are going to need ball point pens, flowers, floral tape
and a hot glue gun. Again, although we don't sell these products at Fabric.com
except the hot glue gun, you can pick up at your local store.
Trim your flowers down to 2-3 inches of stem. This will be the length that you will use to insert into the pen. Go for a variety of colors and different types of flowers to give your bouquet more character.
Take the caps off your pen. You will also need to remove the
end of the pen. The BIC ballpoint pens that I use are awesome for this. I take
my wire cutters and pop the end right off the pen. Once you have removed the
end of the pen, you are ready to wrap the pen with floral tape. I start at the
tip of the pen, winding the floral wrap around the pen until I reach the end
and then pull to snap off the roll. You could cut the end to match it up
perfect, but I like the imperfections at the end.
Bust out your handy glue gun. Put hot glue on the stem of the flower before inserting into the end of the pen. Do not put glue in the pen! This will prevent the pen from working once you are done (I think the hot glue blocks the ink). Push the glued stem into the pen and you are done with your flower pen!
Before you start putting together your finished flowers and vase, do not forget to unplug your glue gun! Craft safety first! Look forward to hearing how things went for you!
