Monday likes roses an awful lot

Hello, girls! It's time to be crafty!

So this challenge idea came to me actually while I was completing Carlyn's challenge a few months ago. I do a lot of crafty stuff and scrapbooking, etc, so I'm always saving and reusing supplies other people might throw out. So that's where this came from. Personally, I rolled cardboard, and I was kinda excited about it.

Back in February, while Stumbling on the internet, I came across a website that showed how to make roses out of old book pages. Now, I like roses. I like roses a lot, and I especially like roses that are made out of other things. I own roses made of glass and of copper and of wood and of paper and of paper towels, two of which variety I made myself (hint: the easiest sounding ones), so I was thrilled to learn to make my own roses out of old book pages.

When I rolled cardboard, I thought, why not try a rose out of cardboard? It didn't go quite as anticipated, but it turned out pretty good, I think, so without any more gabbing from me, here's my craft. Also, I apologize in advance for the photo quality. The light in my apartment sucks and my camera is cheap. Sorry!

Step 1: Obtain cardboard of the thinnest variety possible.

I used, as you can see, cereal boxes, cracker boxes, and tissue boxes. Originally, I was going to try and do a rose of all the same color, more or less, but I didn't have enough section of any one color, so I went with each layer being a different color. 

Step 2: Cut faces off boxes and cut out three and a half six-petal flower shapes.

If you're not doing individual layers, this is easy. If you are, you'll need three full six-petal flowers from your outside three layers, and then the inside three can just have half-flowers. Regardless, you should end up with this:

Quick note: I goofed the upcoming step, so my color-coordinating kinda went out the window. Originally. the red, orange, and yellow were going to be my outside layers. But I made the red into the wrong layer, so I had to cut another purple full-flower out and that became my outside.

Step 3: Cut a slit between two of the petals of your outermost layer. It should still be a six-petaled flower. This is what I goofed, so I don't have a picture.

Step 4: Cut one petal out of the next layer.  (Note: if you're not color-coordinating your layers, keep the petals you cut out. You'll use them later)

Step 5: Cut two petals out of the third layer.

Step 6: Cut the fourth layer in half.

(Steps 6b and 6c: Because I'm color-coordinating, I need my one- and two-petals still)

Eventually, you want to end up with this:

Step 7: Overlap each of the first four layers to make three-dimensional flower shapes. So the first layer with the slit will become a five-petal 3D shape, the next layer will have 4 petals, etc. For paper flowers, I use Tacky glue. for the cardboard, I used hot glue.

 I also glued a length of floral wire to the first layer, to give my rose a stem.

Step 8: Curl the petal edges. This is MUCH easier with paper than cardboard! I started off curling them around a pencil, and ended up just using my fingers, especially on the double layers.

Step 9: Nestle and glue the first four layers in place.

Step 10 (No picture because I'm dumb and forgot to take one). Curl the two-petal section into a loose spiral and glue.

Step 11: Glue the spiral into the top of the rose.

Note: Normally the single petal then gets rolled into a tight spiral and becomes the final layer. However, I found that I couldn't get the cardboard to curl tightly enough, and it looked fine without it, so I left that layer out.

Final product:

A rose for you, lovely ladies!

Alexandra, I'll see you tomorrow!