Flower Pens!

What do you do when you wake up at 7:30 (on your day off!) realizing you left the hot glue gun plugged in all night? Well, once you've determined that you haven't burned the house down, you realize since it's hot anyway, you might as well do some more crafting! :) Or is that just me....?

We're (the PTO) preparing some goodie bags for the teachers at my son's school. I think I mentioned that I'm the designated crafty one in the group so I was given the task of making some flower pens. I stopped at the Dollar Store yesterday and found the rest of the supplies I needed, so this morning I sat down to work. Here is how I did it:

You will need:

• Pens
• Silk Flowers
• Floral Tape
• Glue (Hot glue is great for this!)
• Sissors
• Wire Cutters

Start by taking the top off the pen to give access to the tube. I didn't think about this when I bought my pens so I had to cut the tops off. It's a pain and does slow things down, so maybe keep an eye out for pens that have a tip that pops out (i.e. Bic Stik is one I know of). If you have to cut the tops off, just know they fly everywhere if you aren't careful so don't aim it toward anyone.

Now cut your flower buds off the bunch. I prefer using wire cutters for this rather than sissors since the wire in the stems can damage the blades of your sissors. I actually had my son help me with this. With supervision, a 6 year old is perfectly capable of doing this and he had a lot of fun. Just leave enough of the stem to fit into the tube. I didn't want it to interfere with the ink chamber, so I'd say I had about 1/2" to work with.

Now it's time to attach the flowers. I added a bit of hot glue into the pen tube (It won't need much) and pushed the flower into the glue. Hold for a moment and it should be set. If it oozes out of the top of the tube you can wipe it off, but remember that hot glue is HOT! I'm convinced that it's even hotter at 8am...

Then take your floral tape and begin at the bottom of the pen (the writing end). Stretch the tape a bit to activate the adhesive and then wrap the tape up the length of the pen to the flower. When you tear or cut the tape and roll it at the top the end will blend in nicely with the rest of the tape so you really shouldn't be able to see where it ends.

And that's it!

What I learned:

• This is a super fast craft. I made 2 dozen in about 2 hours. With a different pen it might mave been a bit faster.
• Back to school time is a great time to find pens cheap.
• I really don't care for silk flowers. Some people make amazing floral arrangements, but it's just not my thing. Which is good...I have enough other supplies to keep me busy for a very long time. :)
• My cat will find a way to cuddle when I craft no matter what.
• This would be cute in arrangements for showers or somewhere where pens have a tendency to disappear. This doesn't tuck into a pocket too well without the person knowing. As an accidental collector of pens it would help me!

Have you tried these out before? What was the occasion? Did you make yours differently?
Have a wonderful day!