Crafting at work is definitely a privilege, then to top it off I get to come home and share all my cool projects with you!!! This particular craft project was inspired by Dunn Edwards' June color of the month 'Lazy Daisy', which is a soft, dreamy yellow. The corresponding colors they've chosen to compliment are a relaxed white and yellowish tan, which both help highlight the leading color. To bring this color to life I created my very own 'Lazy Daisy' and then surrounded him by a few smiling daisy friends.
He's just what we needed to brighten the atmosphere up over here at our store! I was having a little trouble figuring out how I wanted his face to look...I mean I googled emoji sleepy faces, lazy expressions, etc. and then started practicing on a scratch piece of paper. At the end of this, I was able to come up with my own "lazy" expression (although I think he kind of looks drunk or high haha maybe both), the result is what you see above.
It was a fun little day yesterday making this, actually was able to zone out and just create since I didn't have a lot of consultations. Throughout the rest of this post I'll be sharing the different materials I used and steps I took to make this silly daisy bouquet.
MATERIALS USED
The materials for this craft project are a mash-up of supplies I could find around my store as well as left over materials from my Holiday Wreath. Basically though it's a lot of paint chips and tape (double-sided, single-sided, reverse sided...haha just kidding...point is it was A LOT of tape). Here is a full list of the supplies:
- 5 x 7 Dunn Edwards Paint Color Cards
COLORS USED = Lazy Daisy DET 491, White Picket Fence DET 648, Grain Mill DET 665, Whisper DEW 340, and Vanilla Shake DEW 325, Green Tourmaline DET 524, Wreath DE 5656
- Double-sided & Single-sided clear tape
- Black Pipe Cleaners
- Green Fun Foam
- Gold Polka Dot Ribbon
- DE Paint Samples (Refined Green DEA 181 for the stem and Porous Stone DE 6220 for the paint can)
- 1 empty Quart Paint Can
- 1 Gallon Wooden Stir Stick
- Brown Masking Paper
- Scissors
- Black Sharpie
- Scratch Paper
CREATING THE DAISIES
Ain't it cute!!
The daisies are actually the easiest part of this whole project. To start I just selected the color chips I wanted to use (5x7 cards), free-hand sketched my flowers - I wanted them all to look different and vary in size so I just winged it, but you could use a stencil or a flower print-out too - then cut them out to be assembled. Before assembling the flowers together, I bent up the petals to make them look as if they were ruffled and more natural. To assemble the flowers I just layered my different size cutouts on top of each other and then taped them together. Next, I simply cut out a circle (using various references depending on the size) for the center, drew on their happy smiling faces or "lazy" face and they were ready to be placed in their paint can garden.
Feel free to make as many daisies as you see fit for your particular project. For mine I have the main daisy, 4 smiling daisy friends, and then 3 other "filler" daisies that I used to cover up the visible tape or any mistakes I made. Next, I started adding pipe cleaner stems to each of my daisy's.
PIPE CLEANER STEMS & SLEEPY Z'S
Definitely not as pretty from the back, but had to piece it together somehow. Luckily, I had several bags of black pipe cleaners left over from a previous project and knew they'd be the perfect stem to my flower, especially since it could help create some bounce and movement among the flowers. In order to create a strong stem and ensure the daisy face didn't droop down, I twisted two pipe cleaners together then made a little loop at the top...the looped part will be taped down to the back of the flower. After I got them taped down (you could do this step before too since you'll end up reshaping them once they're on the main stem), I curled the pipe cleaner around my finger to create a ringlet, which helps add spring to the flowers when someone touches them. See below for visual examples...
Attach these stems to the back of your daisies using double-sided tape. However, I also reinforced the stems with a small circular backing, made out of one of the paint chip color cards. This not only helped secure the stem in place, but also hid the messy work underneath.
The Z's were much simpler to create...all I did was take a single pipe cleaner and shaped it into the size Z I wanted. I did a large, medium, and small then attached them so they looked as if they were floating above the 'Lazy Daisy'. On my project, the large Z is attached to the larger daisy, while the other two smaller Z's are taped to the wooden stir stick.
The middle Z was definitely the hardest to figure out placement wise, especially since I wanted them to look like they're floating, so I had to create a short stem for that Z so it could be raised above the other flowers and center stem. Even though you can still see a little bit of it sticking out...I think it gets across the overall concept pretty well.
To attach all of the flowers to the main center stem (wooden stir stick) I just taped them along the back (see top image of section) altering sizes and positioning to create the look I wanted. Here is where you can adjust the stems of each flower and make sure they're sitting out in a position you like. I just used the normal single-sided tape for this, while the double-sided was used for the pipe cleaner stems.
THE FINISHING TOUCHES
It's slowly coming together guys!!! Although you can still see all the extra tape and little blemishes...so let's fix that shall we?
To cover all the imperfections I created a few more daisies and some decorative leaves, then laid them out as needed. I made these daisies much smaller so they wouldn't overpower the main daisy bunch, but just add a tiny extra magic to the overall bouquet. I used two different colors for the leaves and layered them by simply eye-balling it and letting the layout form organically so it looks like they're growing up the "vine".
Then to finish it off I added some paper "dirt" to the paint can, which is just cut up brown paper crumpled into the bottom. I also placed a green fun foam strip along the back (using double-sided tape) of the wooden stir stick in order to cover all the tape from securing the flower stems down. Finally, I clipped on the color cards and TAADDAAA!!!! All finished!!!
The quart paint can was actually from a previous project, but the way I made it was...taped two ribbon strips around the top and bottom of the can then painted a strip in the middle to break up the polka dots...also in case I ever want to write anything there I have the available space.
There may be messy areas, but if anything it adds to the character of the final piece. It was a fun craft project that took me just one day at work (if I could have sat down and worked on it straight it probably only would have taken a couple hours) plus it was extremely inexpensive to make. You could easily do this project with your kids, nephews and nieces, even teachers or Girl Scout/Boy Scout leaders could use something like this for one of their craft adventures.
Here are the final photos of my Lazy Daisy Paint Can Bouquet...
Guess it's time for Mr. Lazy Daisy's nap...better get him a flower bed before he falls asleep on me!!! Well, at least I crack myself up haha and I hope you all enjoyed this fun DIY paint chip craft project. Just head on down to your local paint or hardware store, pick out some of your favorite colors, and get crafting!!!
Keep an eye out for more DIY Project posts in the future, they won't be up as frequently as some other posts, but when I do have projects to share I'll definitely put them up! Hopefully these adorable smiling daisies can brighten your day!