Plastic Spoon Flowers!

I am incredible surprised by this Pinterest project...what started out as a terrible, ugly mess of conjoined plastic spoons, turned into a beautiful work of art! When all's said and done, it looks like a flower made of glass.

Wanna try one at home? Here you go:

What you need for this project:

• a box of plastic spoons, any color will work
• candle
• scissors
• primer and spray paint - if you want to change the color of your flower afterwards!
• a wee-bit of patience

Instructions:

Step #1: Carefully wave the plastic spoon over your flame. I went back and forth quite a few times until the edges start to roll in. Be careful!! Scorching hot plastic = trip to the burn unit if you're not careful!

Step #2: Cut off the handles - leave some of the handle on most of them, as (sorta) seen in the picture below. (you can always cut away more if you want to!). You should wear goggles for this part because spoon handles/plastic shards were flying all over our kitchen. Our cat had a hay-day. (Side note: do cat goggles exist? Eh, he wouldn't stand to wear 'em anyways). Anyhoo...

Step #3: Wash the soot off of the spoons - you'll need to rub 'em a little with your fingers. It doesn't all come off, which is ok b/c the variation in color looks neat on the final-product!

Step #4: Carefully, hold the newly cut, shorter spoon handles over your flame until the "rough" edge gets melty (or catches on fire), and then smush the handles together in groups of three. Hold it with your fingers or a clothespin until the plastic has cooled and set. You'll have to do this one spoon at a time. Be patient, you're forming the base of your flower. This was a little tricky step, so it just takes some practice. Then repeat with each bundle - hold the bundle of spoon handles over your flame until it gets melty (catching on fire is actually beneficial to get sufficient "glue"!) and then smush the handles together to form the entire base of your flower. Hold until cooled and set. Just be careful of the hot, melty plastic, please!

Step #5: At this point in the project, I thought this might be a Pinterest FAIL. In fact, I didn't take a picture of it, because I thought I'd just throw it away! Something told me to keep going...

Now, one-by-one, with the remaining  individual spoons with the shortest handles, or no handles, hold their ends over the flame (catch on fire, then blow out for best adhesion) and carefully fill in some of the empty spaces *on top* of the base, shoving the melty edges into whatever "crevices" need filling/look good! Keep building on top of the base, and fill in the empty spaces until you're left with this beauty!

 

Step #6: optional step, which I haven't tried: I saw a beautiful picture of a plastic-spoon flower, primed with spray primer, then painted with red spray paint, then somehow adhered to a front door-Christmas wreath. I'm not really sure how they adhered it, but I'd imagine lots of hot glue was involved :)

 

This beautiful flower cost me $1.49 - the cost of a box of plastic spoons at Target :)

AND, I have about half-the box of spoons leftover!

Has anyone else attempted to make these? Any helpful tips that I left out?