Maker Monday: make beautiful paper flowers from recycled magazine pages

With this week’s Maker Monday project, kids can brighten up a winter day by creating a colorful bouquet of flowers from pages of magazines or catalogs you have around the house (or even advertisements that come in the mail).

As with all Maker Monday projects, the steps are easy and they’re all laid out in detail right here. And this project can be done with items you may already have around the house or can easily get.

A note to kid makers: Please work with a parent or caregiver on any Maker Monday project and always be very careful when using tools of any kind.

Maker Monday supplies you’ll need:

• colorful pages from a magazine, catalog or advertisement (or any paper you have around the house)
• pipe cleaners
• a 3-hole puncher
• scissors or a paper cutter

Maker Monday directions:

Step 1: Tear a piece of paper out of a magazine or catalog and punch three holes down each side.

Step 2: Using scissors or a paper cutter, cut along the vertical side of the paper to create thin strips that have three holes in them (see below). Repeat until you have enough strips. (We recommend at least 3 to 4 strips for each flower.)

Step 3: Make a kink in a pipe cleaner about 1 inch from the end. Then bring the two corners of the kink together to create a “stop” in your pipe cleaner (see result below).

Step 4: Take a paper strip and put the pipe cleaner through the middle hole, so that the paper rests on the kink in the pipe cleaner.

Step 5: Take each end of the paper strip and fold it over so that each of the holes at the ends go through the top of the pipe cleaner.

Step 6: Repeat steps 4 and 5 over and over until your flower is full as you wish with your desired number of magazine strips.

Step 7: Coil the top of your pipe cleaner to keep your “petals” in place! You now have a Recycled Magazine Flower!

You can make variations by using larger strips, alternating magazine pages with solid colored paper or using pieces of paper on which you’ve drawn pictures or written messages.

Collect your paper flowers in a bouquet and give them to someone you love, or put multiple flowers in a vase for your whole family to enjoy.

Want more at-home fun creating cool stuff and making beautiful things? Check out more Maker Monday projects right here.

Do you have an idea for a Maker Monday craft project? If so, please share it with Kidsburgh! Send your maker activities to info@kidsburgh.org.