Make The Most Stunning Christmas Flower Decor With A Pipe Cleaner DIY

Pipe cleaner crafts harken back to early childhood projects. Along with macaroni, you might have a hard time imagining these preschool staples as part of a sophisticated flower DIY. Save the macaroni for dinner or your kids' creative time, and hold onto some pipe cleaners for yourself. They become Christmas flowers to add a touch of winter magic to your home decor.

Make flower petals consisting of one sparkly red pipe cleaner and three white ones cut in half. With visionary bending, folding, and gluing, a team of 10 petals morphs into a poinsettia-like bloom. This versatile creation is pretty enough to stand on its own in a bud vase or to tuck into a fuller bundle of faux greenery and flowers. Or, equip it with a hook, and it becomes a tree ornament. If you're decorating for Christmas on a budget, the inexpensive supplies needed for this DIY won't set you back much at all.

Gather up some red and white pipe cleaners; glittery red ones are ideal, but glittery white will add a little something extra, too. Since poinsettias come in a range of colors, swap the ho-hum red for a combo of white and pink, salmon, cream, or even blue. Sticking with solid-color petals is also an option. Put a twist on the solid-color theme by using the same color pipe cleaners, but make one of them a glittery or metallic variety. Also purchase faux flower centers, such as this bulk package of Rikyo Mini Flower Pistil Stamens. As for tools, set aside a pair of wire cutters and a glue gun.

Start with whatever color pipe cleaner you'd like the petals' edge to be. You'll bend it into a spiky arch made of seven individual bends, each about ½ inch long; the tallest bend is in the center, and the three on each side of it are each one lower than the next.

Make the first of the "spikes" by folding the pipe cleaner in half. Take one of the sides, and bend it upwards about ½ inch below the middle bend. Bend it back down so its peak hits halfway up the first one's side. Repeat this process twice more on this side, then repeat all of these bends again on the other side. Grab three pipe cleaners in your other chosen color, snip them in half, and bend each piece in half. Slide each of the six pipe cleaner halves over the arch so that their centers rest in each of the troughs between spikes. Bundle the loose pipe cleaner ends together, and wrap one of the longest ends around the bunch to secure them. Make 10 of these.

Bend each of the petals into a slight curve. Heat up the glue gun, and glue the flower's center to one of the petals. Follow this by gluing four more petals around the center and to each other. Attach the remaining petals below the first row so they sit between each of the first five petals. Use your flower as part of a holiday centerpiece DIY, or attach it to a wreath as its crowning feature.