Water Bottle Flower Bouquet

this instructable will teach you how to make a flower bouquet. It can be for a special someone, a friend, or just plain hobby. This was an idea I came up with for a gift for valentines day.

You will want to choose a vase of your choice and any decorations you want to add like color rocks, marbles or fake butterflies like I did.

Here is a list of item you will need:

water bottles
large glue sticks
thumb tacks
acrylic paint (colors of your choice)
paint brush

Here are the tools you will need:
sissors
safey pin
lighter
razor blade (a box cutter is better and safer)
vise grips
gloves
goggles or any form of safety glasses

*how ever many flowers you plan to make,  it will be good to have extra items due to trial and error. you will want equal quantites of glue sticks water bottles and thumbtacks.

empty the water bottles and cut the bottoms off right at the last ridge.Careful not to cut yourself.

cut along the 5 sides down to the center to make 5 pedels. Do not cut through the center circle. the plastic gets really thick right here so it helps you know where to stop. DO NOT cut the ridges that go half way.

With the sissors round off the ends to form a more pedal shape. you can also use large nail clippers to help curve the far edges. wear the protective eyeware, small pieces thed to fly everywhere. After fold the pedals slightly foward to give them more depth.

After bend the pedals slightly foward to give them more depth.

The thumb tacks will be the center of the flowers. stick them to a cardboard and paint there yellow or colors of your choice. paint as many coats as your please.

Use the vise grips to hold the safety pin. Heat up the safety pin with the lighter and burn a hole through center of the flower.

Now here you paint with the colors you want to use and any pattern you would like to do it in. I painted solid colors. Now there are 3 ways you can paint it.
1 . just the back of the flower. this gives the flower a glossy finish but you can see the brush strokes
2 . just the front of the flower. this way makes it more flat. you can kind of see through where the paint is thinner then other areas 
3 . paint both the front and back of the flower. this helps give it more of an even look with minimal brush streaks. You can always put several coats to help give it an even look.
in this picture I colored each pedal a different way with one coat each. the top was just the back  the middle one is both front and back and the bottom on is just the front.

While both the pedals and thumb tacks dry, start making the stems. With the box cutters slice slivers but don't cut all the way off the glue sticks so they slightly hang. Use the gloves and cut away from you. this step takes time and you will prob go through a few. cut different lengths and thinkness.

In this step you might need someone to assit you or place the part in a holder. I used the vise grips at the edge of the table as seen in the picture. You want to pull the stem blade down and away from the gluestick. almost like peeling a banana. use the lighter to heat the area still attached to the glue stick. dont have the flame to close otherwise it will burn it. you just want to soften it where it droops. if it doops completly down then slowly push it up and will stilck a little to the gluestick.

now bend the stem so the two ends almost meet. with the lighter heat up the gluestick at the bend to just about melting point.  this will make the stems stay curved a little so the stems are not complety straight. do  this in different sections of the stem to give the stems various looks to your preference.
when they are done you can paint them. I chose not to.

Once the paint is dry you can start puting it together. press the thumb tack though the hole in the center of the flower.

press the thumb tack into the end of the gluestick. look over your flowers and make any adjustments and fix any thing u need to.

Now with your newly and beautifully made flower, place them in a vase and decorate anyway you please. i added color marbled rocks and little fake butterflies. enjoy!