Around our house, very little trash goes to the curb; most of our refuse gets sorted an taken to the local recycling drop-off. That means we almost always have bags full of bottles and cans and cardboard boxes tucked away in the utility room. Which means I am always trying to think of ways to use them! That’s how I ended up with the idea to make recycled cardboard and washi tape flowers. I am going to use them as embellishments for my Mother’s Day gift wrapping, but they would also be cute on the fronts if handmade greeting cards, or worn as brooches or in headbands, or glued to just about anything else you can think of!

Project estimate:

• Cardboard, on hand
• Washi tape, on hand or $1 and up
• Paint, on hand
• Mod Podge, on hand
• Buttons, on hand

Total: free and up

Start by cutting two flower shapes out of cardboard. I just drew mine freehand, but if you don’t feel comfortable doing that, you can use a stencil or template to draw your flowers.

Since most washi tape is a little see-through, I gave my cardboard a base coat of paint so that the graphics from the boxes wouldn’t show through. I usually use white paint for this, but since I was using washi in yellow and orange I decided to go with yellow paint instead.

Once the paint is dry, cover the front surface of each flower with washi tape, being careful to line up the pattern. Flip the flowers upside down and use an Xacto knife to trim off the excess tape. Use Mod Podge to glue the smaller flower to the center of the larger flower.

Mod Podge over the whole surface to seal the tape and prevent it from peeling. Add a button to the center to finish the flower.