Sunny-side up bouquet

Spring is in the air, but it's not exactly in the garden yet. So, I took matters into my own hands and made my own colorful bouquet of flowers from an egg carton. 

At first, I was going to glue the blossoms to something -- a piece of cardboard? A tin can? -- and have it be either a thing to hang on the wall, or a pseudo Easter basket. But in the end I went with a straight-forward, and more versatile, bouquet of stemmed flowers.
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Start with a cardboard egg carton. I used a combo of a craft knife and scissors to do all of my cutting. Cut leaves from the bent edges of the lid, as shown below. The flowers are obviously the cups of the carton; cut them out roughly from the carton, then shape the petals. Cut a few of the sticky-uppy posts for flower centers, too.

Play around with different shapes and configurations of petals. Here's what I ended up with.

And now, you get to paint! Fun. I used acrylic, and for most colors I only needed one coat.

For the stems, I used 22-gauge cloth-wrapped stem wire, because I had it on hand. Pipe cleaners would have worked, but I'm all out of green ones! The 22 gauge wire was almost too stiff to work easily. I'd go down to a 24 or even a 26 gauge. (The weird thing about wire is that the higher the number, the thinner the wire.)
Anyway. Cut your wire into roughly 6 or 8-inch lengths. (I cut my 18-inch-long stems in half, and they were too long; I could have cut them into thirds and have been fine.) Poke a hole near one end of each leaf. Use a push pin and wiggle it around to widen the hole so it's big enough to slide onto the wire.  

​This next photo is a bit misleading. You're going to bend one end into a flat circle that's perpendicular to the rest of the stem, as shown, but don't slide on the leaf just yet.

Now it's time to put everything together. I decided to try hot glue again, after a long absence. I have Problems with hot glue, problems that often end up with burned fingers and rubbery spiderweb strands all over the place. Not this time, I told myself. I am a pro, I affirmed. Smash-cut to me with two burn-blisters on my left hand, and stringy hot glue bits everywhere. Sigh. Yes, hot glue dries fast, but it just isn't as easy and safe as tacky glue. 
Anyway, here's how I made the flowers with hot glue. Substitute tacky for hot glue as you prefer; you'll just need to hold things longer (or lay them in place as the glue sets). First glue any inner blossom (made with an upright post from the carton) to its outer counterpart. Turn the flower over, dab a blob of glue on the middle of the flat part, and press the circle end of the wire into the glue, like you're an old-timey cowboy branding a horse. Hold as the glue sets. Slide a leaf onto the stem wire, and dab glue around and in the hole to secure it in place. All of this will be hidden so it's ok if it looks a bit messy.

Once all of your flowers are stemmed, and the glue is dry, gather them up into one hand to make a bouquet. Arrange them as you like, then wrap the stems together with tape. 

Put them in a vase of your choosing. I like using an old glass bottle for small bouquets.

Turn this into a St. Patrick's Day project by adding a four-leafed clover. You could make all of the stems shamrocks instead of flowers, if you want to go all-in. 

Happy almost-spring! 
​xo