#06 How-to make over sized flowers made of used plastic bags

This is a fun project to do at home or in a class room. I first tried it during a craft show with some random kids that joined in, and I have to tell you that my best audience were boys with the coolest hair cut, wearing soccer uniform (approximately 10 years of age). They thought it was a great idea to make a flower for their mom. If you don’t have plastic bags to spare, I am sure your friends will, you may also reuse tissue paper.
At home we chose to decorate our bare tree in our backyard. It looks much happier waiting for its leaves to sprout.

You will need:

used plastic bags (the noisy kind). Each flower requires 10-12 single sheets of nylon (5-6 plastic bags)
scissors
pipe cleaner
string

How to:

Flatten all plastic bags, pile them one on top of the other, and smooth them straight. If you have different size bags, organize them by size.
Trim handles and bottom of bags. You should have the bags as tubes now, stretch them out and keep them flat.
Trim sides, so you have single sheets.
Fold the sheets of nylon stacked on top of each other like an accordion.
Twist the pipe cleaner over the center of the accordion; you may make a small loop at the end of the pipe cleaner so you can tie a string to it.
Trim both ends into either a pointy shape or a curved shape as desired.
Fan out the ends into a butterfly shape.
Open up the flower by peeling each layer separately. Do the same on both sides.
Fluff the layers of nylon to get a full and puffy flower. Give it a little hair cut if needed.

Things to think about:

Depending on the plastic bags you have, you may make nice color combination.
The flowers are great for outside as well as inside
An easy and inexpensive solution for a birth day decoration
If you make them smaller, you may use the pipe cleaner that ties the flowers as the stem.
Zoe had to add a touch of perfume to them (she sprayed it on the pipe cleaner).