Let's Make Flowers...From Q-Tips!

Let's say you find you're in the mood to make a craft project. And, you have a box of Q-tips plus a few foam balls left over from a project you never got around to making. What do you do? Make flowers, of course!

This simple and easy project is fun to make and creates a cute flower in just an hour.

Supplies needed:

• Styrofoam balls - I used 1.5-inch, 3-inch, and 5-inch balls
• 1 large box of Q-tips
• Glue gun and glue sticks
• Food coloring
• Rubber gloves
• A glass bowl
• Floral stem with leaves (pop the flower off and save it for another project) or bamboo skewers

How to make them:

Cut Q-tips in half. I used about 150 halves to cover the 3-inch ball. That makes for a full looking ball but you may use fewer spaced farther apart.

• Heat up the glue gun. When it's ready, dab a dot of glue onto the cut end of a Q-tip and poke it into the ball. You don't have to use a glue gun but I found that it helps to hold the Q-tip in the ball permanently.
• Timesaver tip: squirt a small pool of glue onto a paper towel and dip the end of the Q-tip into the glue rather than directly from the glue gun.
• Keep dabbing the end of each Q-tip with glue and poking it into the ball - not too close together because it will take too long to finish but not too far apart that the ball looks half done.
• I made a single line around the ball then made a second line of Q-tips going the opposite direction so that the ball was in quarters. You don't have to be that precise - just start glueing and poking!
• Fill in the rest of the ball with the Q-tips until it is full.

• At this point, you can admire your "snowball" and you are done. Imagine how cute a bowl of snowballs would be!
• If you choose to add color to the balls, get on your rubber gloves.

• In a glass bowl, add a few drops of food coloring to a small amount of water and stir together. 
• Dip the Q-tips into the food coloring just enough to saturate the cotton tips. Do this over the entire ball (the food coloring will stain clothing and skin so, wear the gloves and watch your shirt!)
• Set the balls aside to dry on a plate.

Lana's sunburst flower

• You can display these just like that as a table top display or move on to the next step.
• Once the balls are dry, use the glue gun to put a bit of glue on to the top of the floral stem or skewer. Poke the stem or skewer into the ball deep enough to keep the ball from flopping over.

That's it! You can make a garden of these flowers in an afternoon. They would be pretty for a springtime party or shower!