Saturday, October 6, 2007

Plastic Bag Rosette Tutorial

This tutorial is dedicated to the awesome guys and gals at Craftster. Ask and you shall receive.

Materials and tools:

one standard size plastic grocery bag (or other shopping bag of about the same size)
one bobby pin (optional)
small felt scrap (optional)
hot glue gun
scissors


Step 1: Lay your bag flat with the side gussets folded in. Cut off the handles and bottom seam. Discard or save for another kickass project. Unfold gussets and lay flat.

Step 2: Fold the bag in half from top to bottom or bottom to top, doesn't matter, as long as you're folding one long side to the other.Then fold in half again, and at this point you may want to run a bead of hot glue along one edge for your last fold so the plastic stays put. Those grocery bags are slippery little buggers.Fold in half once more so that you have a long strip about 2 inches wide.

Step 3: Stick your scissors into one of the open ends of the strip and cut the folded side open, being sure to cut through all the layers. Now you should have several individual strips of plastic that are glued together on one long edge.
Cut strips along the length of your plastic, leaving about 1/4" of the glued edge intact.At this point I like to just shake out any loose bits of plastic that didn't get glued down.Step 4: Working in small sections at a time, run a bead of hot glue along the length of the uncut side of your fringe and roll tightly from end to end.
Turn it over and you've got yourself a little plastic pompom.Spread the petals back and hot glue a button or other flat object in the center.Step 5 (optional): To make this into a hair pin, I slip a small square of felt into a bobby pin, coat one side of the felt with hot glue and affix it to the back of the rosette. You could also attach your rosette to a brooch pin or a ponytail holder, use them as decorations on your fused plastic shopping bags, or make wire stems and display a bouquet of them in a vase. Just have fun with it, and if you use this tutorial, please send me pictures because I'd love to see your creations.

Happy crafting!



9 comments:

Faye said...

so frickin cute!!!!!!!!!!!

inkberryblue said...

Thanks so much for the tute.
The flowers are adorable!

amanda. said...

You are so talented! I can't believe you can do that with a plastic bag! Wow. I'm gonna come stay with you for awhile and you're gonna teach me everything you know, okay?

(this is amanda. from Laundro, btw.)

World Wide Alternative said...

Oh my! Grabbing, running & laughing maniacally! Xxx

Amanda said...

OMG AWESOME!!!

Debbie DeLano - Sweet Butterfly Boutique said...

OMG! I came across this while looking for pinwheel bows and we have a TON of plastic bags that we aren't using! Thank you so much for this! I'm going to work on them now!

Irum said...

excellent idea... Love it :)

Unknown said...

lol all i can find is either brown or white bags. where'd you get the blue ones? do they come in diff colors? i made my first one last night for my girls and it was soooo adorable!

Unknown said...

wow,,so cute!.am soo making this tonight.sure i will be the first one to be makinbg it in Kenya(wink!)