Newspaper Flowers

It's been a while since I posted anything.  My camera is on the blink so I've had a major handicap.  I spent the day with sister number 3 yesterday, so I was able to use her camera. I got this idea from purpleandscarlet.com.  You should visit her site to see her rendition of these flowers.  Her colors are more intense than mine and I think I like them better.  Next time I will add more food coloring to mine but that won't be any time soon.  I have enough colored paper to last me for a long time and since that's the slow part of the process, I will use what I have made.

The first step is to mix a small amount of food color and water in a shallow pan.  I used my sister's gel colors from her cake decorating business.  For my first dyeing I used too much water.  You really just barely cover the bottom of a cookie sheet.

 I kept turning the paper until it was thoroughly soaked in color.  I probably used 2 or 3 sheets folded over.  I left some of the sheets in one piece after the color step and some I tore in strips.

I placed them in the oven at about 150 degrees to dry.

To make the roses I just started rolling the strips, making little pleats when needed.  I glued this with hot glue.

I rolled up strips to make the stamen.

I gathered them up in a bunch and then added petals around this.

I was not very careful in screening which part of the newspaper I used.  When I finished one flower, I noticed that I could clearly read "Woman Raped" on one of the petals.  Needless to say, I eliminated that part.

After the flowers were finished I sprayed them with this product that I got at Michael's.  It made the flowers a bit shimmery.

Here is a small box that I bought at the Dollar Tree with the flowers on top.

I may use a brush and add a little color to parts of the flowers and leaves.  I'm not sure the picture does them justice, but these turned out really cute.  I think they would be nice decorations for your Christmas gifts. Happy Crafting!!!