Halloween Decorations - Crafting a Few Minutes at a Time

Flexible stems allow for shorter containers.

In between posts on the walking stick, I'm blogging on my series I call Crafting a Few Minutes at a Time.  I have run into so many people who say they wish they could do some crafting but they just can not find enough time.  My point is that projects great and small can be accomplished even if you have only a few minutes a day to work on a craft.  If you can find ten, fifteen, or twenty minute segments of time, to work on a craft you will be amazed at what can be accomplished.

There are only 62 crafting days until Halloween.  I count Halloween day as a crafting day because I

Loop with double sided tape.

know some of you have waited until the last minute.  Somehow time just seems to get away faster than expected.  My personal deadline is a bit earlier.  My Halloween decorations go up the first day in October.  I don't like to feel rushed, so I start crafting early.

Today I am blogging about a quick Halloween craft, a bouquet of crepe paper flowers.  However, don't expect your first flower to be completed that quickly.  There is a learning curve. Once you master the technique, you can make a flower in about five minutes.  Make a flower while waiting for water to boil or if you are

Making gathers.

waiting for a television program to begin.  You will have a bunch of these flowers in no time.  One decoration down and it only took five minutes at a time.  Even better it is not a very expensive project to boot!

I saw this Halloween craft in a book called Spooky and Bright by Hearst Books.  It is a reprise of crafts shown in Country Magazine.  I thought the crepe flowers would be a great project so I had to try it.  The mason jar is only temporary.  At this point I have not made a trip to the craft store to find a vase for the flowers.  However, the clear vase does help to illustrate a

Floral tape at the base.

point about the project.  Read on.

What you will need: a roll of black crepe paper, some floral wire, some double sided tape, floral tape, and wire cutters or heavy scissors.

Begin by cutting 18 inches of floral wire.  It does not have to be exact, but it needs to be close to that length.  Fold the wire in half.  Make a loop at the cut ends and twist.  Wrap the loop with a piece of the double sided tape.  (The loop is my own embellishment to this project.  The initial instructions just said to tape the ends.  I found that the loop helped hold the center in the shape I

Gently fold the petals downwards to open the flower.

wanted better than just taped ends.)

With the crepe paper still on the roll, place the loop of wire close to the top of the width of the crepe paper strand and press down firmly.  Wrap the crepe paper around the loop for four turns and gather the bottom by pinching the bottom with your fingers.  Then start making larger gathers, working your way around the flower, pinching the base of the flower as you move around the flower.  The more gathers you have, the larger your flower will be.  Fewer turns will give you something that looks like a rose but.  More gathers will make the flower become fuller.  When your flower reaches the desired size, cut the crepe paper from the roll.  Then wrap the base in floral tape to keep the flower from unraveling.   I estimate it takes about a yard of crepe paper to make a flower but I never unrolled one to measure it.

After the flower is taped with floral tape, gently pull the petals out and downward to open the flower.  Don't pull to much or the gathers will come loose.  If you leave the flower tightly wrapped it will look more like a but than a full flower.  That is it.  The flower is complete.  Make a dozen and you have  nice gruesome black flowers for Halloween.

At first I had a complaint with the stems being too thin and bendy.  Once I started trying to find a container for the flowers I saw that the thin stems were an advantage because if your container was short the stems could be bent so that the flowers would fit in a smaller container.  If you know the height of your vase, you could wire or tape the flowers onto wooden stakes or skewers.  Of course, that would add to the cost of the project.

I cost for a bouquet of flowers would be under six dollars.  I paid $2.49 for the floral wire,  $2.89 for the floral tape, and $1.00 for the crepe paper.  (2 rolls for a dollar at the Dollar Store) I did not use a full roll for the entire bouquet.  I still have plenty of wire and tape left over as well.

So that is one flower project.  I made another type of flower as well but I will show that one in another blog post.  Happy crafting.