Over the years I have found many ways to upcycle our "trash" into treasures and one of my favorite items from the recycling bin is an egg carton. Yes, I've shared many different egg carton flower craft projects. This egg carton sunflower wreath is a fun fall craft to make with the kids or for adults to make too.
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I first started making egg carton flowers with my kids, about 12 years ago. We have transformed a basic egg carton into beautiful daffodils, poppies, wreaths, and bouquets. This time I took inspiration from a bouquet of sunflowers that I picked up at our local flower market. Sunflowers always bring a smile to my face. I wanted to make a sunflower craft that captured the contrast between the bright sunshine petals, the vibrant green leaves, and the dark inner globe. This made this a great time to make some fluffy pompoms too!
How to Make an Egg Carton Sunflower Wreath
Supplies you need to make an egg carton sunflower wreath
cardboard egg carton - clean
scissors
acrylic paints - yellow, green
glue gun
10-inch embroidery hoop
yellow ribbon
black yarn
pompom maker tool
The first step in making this sunflower wreath is to make the egg carton sunflowers. Use your scissors to start breaking the egg carton into individual cells. You are going to want to use a clean cardboard egg carton - this way your flowers will last a long time. Once you cut the egg carton into sections, you can start trimming them into sunflowers. After looking at the sunflowers I knew these flowers needed many point petals. And, that's just what I did.
Once I had cut the flowers, it was time to cut out the petals from the egg carton. You can use the scraps you created or use the cardboard lid of the egg carton. Sunflowers have pointy leaves, so I cut a whole pile of pointy leaves from the lid and scraps of the egg carton.
Now, it's time to paint. I painted 2 coats of yellow acrylic paint on the flowers. I was sure to paint the inside and outside of each flower. This took some time, to allow each coat of paint to dry before adding the next coat.
I then used a bright green acrylic paint on the leaves. Then I set everything aside to dry while I made the pompoms.
I love using the Clover pompom maker tool. I've shared a video and a full tutorial on how to make pompoms using this tool. I've made pompoms with a homemade pompom tool in the past, but honestly, this little tool is inexpensive and is so easy to use, in my opinion, it's worth it to buy a set. I used the smallest maker tool, which is 35mm. And, I used black acrylic yarn for the pompoms. I made 11 pompoms. One for each sunflower.
Once everything is dry it is time to glue the sunflowers together. I used a dollop of hot glue in the "cup" of each flower and then pressed the pompom into the glue. I opted to keep my pompoms quite fluffy, but you could trim yours down to make them smaller and more compact. Again, I took inspiration from my bouquet of sunflowers and they seemed to have quite a large disc floret - did you know the middle of a sunflower is called a disc floret?!
Now that the sunflowers are made it's time to make the egg carton sunflower wreath. I like using an embroidery hoop as the base for my egg carton wreaths. They are inexpensive and easy to use. For this wreath, I used a 10-inch hoop. Start by gluing a base of petals on the hoop.
When I looked at the real sunflowers I could see the pattern of the leaves was simple. A single layer of leaves. So I glued a single layer of leaves all the way around the hoop. Then, I glued the yellow sunflowers on top of the leaves. Rotating the flowers as I went around. I ended up using 11 egg carton sunflowers for the entire wreath. Set the wreath aside to dry.
To hang the wreath you will need to add a piece of ribbon to the back of the wreath. Add a dollop of hot glue to the back of the hoop and press one end of the ribbon into the glue, securing it in place. I cut a 12-inch strip of ribbon, if you know where you intend to hang your wreath you could measure the exact length you will need. Finish pressing the other end of the ribbon into another dollop of hot glue on the opposite side of the first.
Now your egg carton flower wreath is ready to hang. I think this will make a lovely addition to our front door for late summer and early fall. All the happy sunflower "faces" make me smile.
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