• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Michele Made Me

One birdie's attempt to figure things out. Oh, and crafts.

  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
    • Press
  • Shop
  • Quilts
  • Tutorials
    • Christmas crafts
    • denim
    • fibre
    • home and garden
    • kids
    • miscellaneous
    • paper crafts
    • plastic crafts
    • seasonal crafts
    • sewing
  • Series
    • And Then There Were Tree
    • Candy Wrapper Chain
    • Drop-Dead Denim
    • Feast of The Flower
    • Five Little Things
    • Halve a Circle
    • Junkmail Snowflakes
    • Loving Is Listening
    • Merry Little Christmas Ornament
    • My Tiny Brain Wave
    • Old Towel New
    • Ornament-ED
    • Situation Christmas Ornament-ation
    • The Box Chain
    • The Great Tissue Box Challenge 2010
    • You Guest It
  • Contact

Series 1 – Part 5: THE FEAST OF THE FLOWER: Foam Trays

June 9, 2010 by Michele

Here we are at The Feast of the Flower: Part 5! (If you’ve missed Parts 1 through 4, here is Part 4, and from there you can follow the links for Parts 1,2 and 3. Have fun!)
Today’s installment of the FOF (Feast of the Flower): foam trays. You know the kind. They’re the ones meat and take-out food come in. So, I decided to recycle the heck out of them and make some flowers because…well… they are free and they are wonderful wonderful to work with!
First off, meet the raw materials… Nice eh? You see the potential too.
To begin, here are the pieces I’ve cut for my first flower.

Here they are painted…
And the finished flower with all parts glued together. So simple. I didn’t end up using the small yellow circle. I liked it just like this. Flower #1, complete!
My second flower is made of 8 narrow strips and one black circle (which is missing from my photo. Oops.) This flower is essentially quilled but with foam instead of paper. In order to roll your foam strips, you first have to work them with your fingers and fingernails to soften them up.

Here is a closeup of the softened strip.
Once I’d softened all 8 strips, I rolled them into these little round petals which I pinned in place. I then took a needle and thread, and tied 7 of them shut.
The eighth strip was quilled but not tied. And then it was glued onto my black foam circle (NOW it shows up… better late than never, I guess).
I glued on the 7 petals, keeping them in place with pins while the glue dried. Pins glorious pins!
It needed a little paint of course! Flower #2, done!
Now, Flower#2 got me thinking about this whole softening thing and how, when you do that the foam takes on a whole new look and texture… That inspired this next flower. I also chose to make it predominantly out of one of my black trays for a change. Black flowers are rare but they do exist!
I cut, softened and shaped all the pieces…
Then I glued them all together to make Flower #3! Here she is…
Well as usual for the last two flowers, I was so focussed and on a roll that I totally forgot to take process photos. (This is something I really have to improve upon because that’s where all the fun happens!)
Anyway, for the fourth flower I cut and painted petals and a body, and I also made a green ring that I texturized with the end of a pin.
I then overlapped the petals onto the black body and glued them in place. I used pins here too, to hold everything together. I let the glue dry.

Once the glue was dry, I glued on the green ring. Ta da! Flower #4!
Nary a process photo for Flower #5. Here she is, done and done!
So there you have them, five foam flowers!
Now for some group shots!
And more photos just because…

Have a lovely evening!

P.S. I’m linked!

Keeping It Simple Making mmm button
Handmade Monday @ Olga’s Home and Garden Blog

Filed Under: Feast of The Flower, plastic crafts, plastic crafts, reuse, Tutorials Tagged With: crafts, flowers, foam trays, recycling, tutorial

Previous Post: « Sunday Morning Craft with the Boy
Next Post: Observation: We are obsessed with repetition repetition. »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Amy says

    June 9, 2010 at 11:41 am

    A spectacular display of creativity!

  2. Ariane says

    June 9, 2010 at 4:52 pm

    They look gorgeous!!!

  3. Notjustnat says

    June 9, 2010 at 11:20 pm

    Mechele, it's wonderful what you do with the 'meat tray'. It's really beautifully done. I love it. Thanks for visiting my blog – Hugs Nat

  4. Handmade in Gibraltar says

    June 12, 2010 at 3:39 pm

    Fantastic, I might have a go at one of these with my kids art class , would you mind ?
    Louise x

  5. Sheri@childmade.com says

    July 2, 2010 at 4:11 am

    Another great production! I can see I'll be linking several… Thanks for sharing!

  6. Jensters says

    July 13, 2010 at 10:18 am

    So amazing and i love them.

  7. Mascottblog says

    July 16, 2010 at 1:15 pm

    Yhank you for the idea ! It is lovely !! Another thing to try !!! I have kept those too, now I know what to do with them ๐Ÿ˜‰ …

  8. Olga says

    August 16, 2010 at 7:58 pm

    Unbelievable! All this beauty emerged from foam trays! Fantastic idea!

  9. Hannah says

    August 20, 2010 at 9:52 pm

    These are amazing! Wow, what a creative idea! Your blog is lovely, I am now a follower ๐Ÿ™‚

  10. Anji* says

    October 8, 2010 at 12:49 pm

    Thanks for the link to these – they're fab! I recognise #4 from your [old] header!

  11. CandaceAshley says

    November 10, 2010 at 1:35 pm

    I am loving all the recycled crafts and art! This is so great, you are so talented and creative! Very impressed!

  12. KatrinkaJane says

    December 25, 2010 at 11:22 pm

    I love that so many of your flowers are abstracted. Reminds me of my hardware flower frame: http://katrinkajane.blogspot.com/2010/06/csi-project-hardware-store-challenge.html.

  13. Ashwini Vanmali says

    June 8, 2011 at 12:41 am

    Hey,
    Just saw ur blogpost in crafycrow. So I happened to step into your blog and i feel so amazed to meet someone who likes to be creative from stuff. stuff we tend to throw away. I too have some blogs regarding being creative with unused throwaway stuff..do hop in when ur free..

    And im just bcome a fan of your creativity.

    -Ashwini
    http://ashwinivanmali.blogspot.com/

  14. Silvia says

    August 22, 2011 at 5:56 pm

    I love these flowers… can I ask you how you colored them?

  15. Michele Pacey says

    August 22, 2011 at 9:22 pm

    Hi Silvia: I used the standard liquid acrylic paint you get at all the craft stores. Hope that helps!

  16. AQ says

    February 5, 2013 at 4:00 pm

    Love all the creative uses for materials that would sit in landfills! Awesome ๐Ÿ™‚

    U could also hot glue some of these flowers onto a pair of old shoes/slippers, or little girls' headbands (cheapo ones from $store). Or make a brooch. Earrings. Necklaces. I may end up doing tht! Customized shoes/headbands/accessories for a fraction of the cost. Yay!

  17. afarmgirlslife says

    June 18, 2015 at 12:39 am

    Beautiful, beautiful! You have such a lovely blog. I would follow it if I could, but I like the blogs I follow to show up in my reader, and I use WordPress. ๐Ÿ™ At least I can still come and look!

Primary Sidebar

  • Bloglovin
  • Email
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • YouTube

Sign up for Email updates

From The Box Chain Series

Categories

Archives

TERMS OF USE

Copyright © 2021 Michele Pacey.

I am ecstatic if you choose to link to this site, use a brief description, one photo, or link back to any of my posts. Do not republish entire posts without my permission. Tutorials, patterns and printables are for your personal use only and are not to be used to make items for sale. Thank you.

Footer

  • Bloglovin
  • Email
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • YouTube
Copyright © 2023 Michele Pacey ยท Site developed by Autumn Street