The Creative Place

Oh, I'm so excited to share this tutorial with you today! :) I decided to make a super cute flower petal frame after being inspired by a floral frame at my hubby's family's home. I went to Michael's and ACMoore yesterday (with 50% off coupons in hand!) to get some flower stems (fake of course) and a mini glue gun (can you believe I don't have one?! I think I used to.... hmmm :)). I bought four different types of flowers, but you could buy as many or as few as you like. Some of them were on sale (yay!) and the others I used my coupons for. :) The glue gun was only $1.61 after the coupon and the mini glue sticks were the same (yay!). I had an old frame that my sweet sis-in-law gave me and decided to use that. I wanted to have a large area to cover with the flower petals, but you could easily use a skinny frame too and save on the amount of petals needed.Supplies:
- Old picture frame (find one at a thrift store or tag sale for super cheap - repurposing- yay!)
- Glue gun
- Glue sticks (I used a 1.5 mini sticks)
- Faux flowers with bunches of little petals. This is the tricky part- I didn't know how many to purchase, so I bought 6 ($$ ouch), but only ended up using 4 - so I will be taking the other two back. I'm guesstimating that four of the floral stems have enough petals to make 1 big frame (8"x10" - like mine pictured) and 1 smaller frame (5"x5"-ish). Make sure that the stems you purchase have bunches of petals - the stem with white petals in the picture above had 105. Yes, I counted so I could tell you :)
- Optional- enough ribbon to glue around the edge of the frame - this gives it a more finished look, but I was also happy with the way mine looked before I glued on the ribbon
Begin by pulling off all of the petals from each floral stem - or you can pull them off one at a time. I pulled a bunch off of two stems in order to see how many I would actually need and not waste all of the stems if I didn't end up needing them. I would then pluck one off at a time as I was working on the frame. Pull out the plastic-y thing from the middle of the flower (this was holding it to the stem) - so all you have is the petal to work with.
Using your glue gun (be careful! I burned myself once or twice.... *cough* ok a bunch ;)), put a small dab of hot glue on the middle of the petal (where the hole is from the plastic-y thing) and start gluing them down one by one to the frame.... Keep gluing.... and gluing.... and gluing some more...
The trick is to bunch them up together to create a full and fluffy look. I interspersed the four different types of petals also. This part takes quite awhile-- it took me about an hour and 20 minutes to do this 8"x10" frame - I was racing against the clock during naptime ;)
Voilà! A fabulous flower petal frame. Perfect for putting a spring picture in :) Or you could print out your favorite quote or Scripture :)

If desired, using your hot glue gun, glue the ribbon around the perimeter of the frame (see below) :)

+++ This tutorial is being linked over at The Shabby Chic Cottage Transformation Thursday.