Tuesday 4 June 2013

Toilet paper flowers

Turning toilet paper squares into paper roses

We always paint with our watercolours set. I have noticed that when we do something over and over again the kids' attention span starts to wane. Worse still, the time spent painting gets shorter and shorter. I have also noticed that when you change just one aspect of an activity the kids' interest can be totally re-energised.

When I saw an idea in Skye Roger's book Paper Bliss that turns squares of toilet paper into paper roses I knew what I could do to re-invigorate watercolour painting.

Turning toilet paper squares into paper roses

Turning toilet paper squares into paper roses

Turning toilet paper squares into paper roses

Turning toilet paper squares into paper roses

Our Micador watercolour set came out and I grabbed a toilet paper roll. I cut a circle from each square of toilet paper. It might sound strange but the kids were intrigued. I asked them if they would like to paint on my cut toilet paper circles... they did. It took them a little while to realise they had to be gentle with the toilet paper. Their brushes kept tearing the paper. They soon got the hang of it and began dabbing the paint on and watching it bleed into the paper.

The girls painted many, many circles of toilet paper. We laid them all over the dining room table to dry. I didn't get a chance to paint as I was too busy cutting circles to keep them in supply.

After the paper had dried I stacked the circles in piles of four. I pushed a paper fastener through the stack and then scrunched each layer until I had a rose shape.  We arranged them in a vase and they are sitting on the mantlepiece.

Turning toilet paper squares into paper roses

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS, google+ or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and InstagramCheers Ali

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16 comments:

  1. Cool....love the idea of using toilet paper!

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  2. ohhh pretty!
    Very original, I haven't seen anything similar to this before.

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    1. Thank you, that is kind of you to say.

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  3. The flowers look lovely. I have made flowers using the same technique with scrap booking paper and a scalloped punch. You just need to use the punch to cut out five or six pieces. Secure as you did with a brad clip, then use a small paintbrush and water to slightly wet the edges of the paper. Once the paper is damp, pinch it together to from the rose shape.

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    1. Great idea Elise, we will have to give that a go

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  4. They are really lovely Ali. We love our watercolours here (I think we have the same ones :) ) and Jack loves painting onto paper towel. I think he would really like making these

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    1. Paper towel would be perfect. You could make some very large roses. Thanks for the idea.

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  5. They turned out Gorgeous. We tried some toffee wrapper flowers recently, that was super simple. We will try this next... :)

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    1. Toffee paper wrappers sound interesting, you could probably do this with all sorts of materials, you have given me something to think about! :)

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  6. Love them Ali...they look so adorable. I love using water colours on paper towel which gives much the same effect but the tissue and turning them into flowers is just lovely...pinning :)

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  7. You are so creative Ali! These are just beautiful.

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  8. And, don't they look fantastic. I can imagine once you've finished painting that there would be lots of opportunities to play with these flowers.

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  9. What a beautiful and simple idea! T'm pinning these. They are just lovely :) Hannah@paint on the ceiling.

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