Yes, it's faux but it looks like real metal! It is chippy, rustic and farmhouse and I’m in love. It's made from 4 Dollar Tree aluminum pans, which come in a pack of 2 so 50 cents each! Do a little cutting, add a little paint and bam! A beautiful faux flower. Some go between $30-60 and you could spend $2 to make your own, using some basic supplies you probably have on hand already. It's easy - trust me! Kids can help too. The metal can be a little sharp so depending on their age, I probably wouldn't let them cut but they could paint the flower then you could use the hot glue gun to assemble and have them curl up the petals. It's so easy and they would love it!
I sealed mine with an exterior sealer but to be honest, I'm not sure how they would hold up outside. I'll let you know. I can just picture our dog's tennis ball smashing into the poor thing and squashing it. They are SUPER lightweight so you could hang it just about anywhere without worrying about it harming anything.
Are you ready to make one? Because I'm obsessed and I want to make more. I'm going to be attending a vintage open-air market at the end of next month and I really think I should come with a ton of these. You could even a few small ones or teeny tiny ones and add a magnet for pretty fridge decorations. The possibilities are endless!
This post contains affiliate links, which means I may get paid if you make a purchase through Amazon.
What you need:
2 packages of aluminum baking sheets from Dollar Tree or if you can't find them, there's a link to Amazon
Paint - I used milk paint because I couldn't find my chalk paint. You can use milk paint, chalk paint, craft paint or spray paint
Hot Glue Gun and glue sticks
Paper and sharpie for template and tracing
Sealer (optional)
First, you'll need to draw out your flower petal templates on some paper with a sharpie. Just free-hand, nothing fancy. I made a large, a medium and a small.
Cut those petal templates out.
Trace onto your aluminum, trying to fit as many as possible. I knew I wanted 5 large, 3 small and as many medium as I could get.
THEN, I saw I had extra scraps so I made another tiny little template
I also used the scraps to cut a circle that I could glue to. I traced a cup for the circle with my sharpie then cut it out.
Now you're ready to paint! Put down some paper or a tablecloth and paint. I painted mine blue and was not concerned with coating the whole petal. I wanted a rustic look. I painted about half of the medium sized petals and all of the small with some yellow in the center. I painted the tiny scrap petals in all yellow without swapping my brush, by the way, so it's a little muddied but I like it that way.
Let that side dry, preferably not a 90 degree humid day, like it was here. Flip them over and paint just the top halves so when you curl, you don't see the metal.
Let those puppies dry. Once they are dry, plug in your glue gun.
Hot glue your large ones first onto the circle. I used a screw driver to hold it onto the glue because the metal is thin and will get VERY hot.
Continue with your medium petals. I placed them before gluing so I had an idea of how to glue them so they were somewhat evenly spaced. I put the blue and yellow petals closest to the center. Now place your small ones with your tiny yellow petals.
It should look something like this.
Now, you can curl the petals, starting with the center ones. I curled these a lot so you couldn't really see the center and so it looked as if it was a real flower...kind of.
Now you can seal the whole flower. I really put on a thick coat and tried to get under all of the petals so I can try this outside. I'm working on operation: decorate the 45 feet of fence! I put two coats on.
Tada! I think it's really pretty. This is not where it is going to live on the fence, I'm waiting on husband approval for nails in the fence.
Comments
Post a Comment