Tutorial: upcycle egg cartons into Flower Fairies

For our third guest post in the Cucicucicoo’s Eco Crafters and Sewers series, I’m thrilled to have Silvia from Mammabook! I’ve known this Italian mom living in Germany for years now, and it’s amazing how close you can feel to a person without ever having seen her before! I love her creative drive, always creating new things in her very own personal style. Feeling passionate about upcycling, she’s organized two editions of the Creative Recycling for Kids initiative (and I participated in both 2014 and 2013 with guest posts). She has a unique and whimsical drawing and painting style, which you can see in her Etsy shop, which features intricately painted rocks, which she turns into brooches, toys, magnets and more.

Silvia has created a tutorial for an incredible transformation of egg cartons, so let me show her in!

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I’m so glad to have the chance today to write for a blog which I truly adore, and that I’ve been reading for such a long time; thank you, Lisa! I am also really happy because I’ve been invited to present a tutorial about creative recycling, and that’s definitely one of my favourite artistic topics.

There are a lot of recyclable materials out there, but egg carton boxes are for me among the most beautiful and flexible. Today I prepared for you an easy DIY to create decorative flower fairies, perfect for every season – wouldn’t they be cute also in red and white hanging from a Christmas tree?!

To make these fairies you’ll need wooden beads about one and half centimetres in diameter, beads about half a centimetre in diameter, string or twine, and, of course, egg carton boxes. Please place on your work space also watercolours and acrylics colours, a thin brush and a thicker one, scissors in various sizes, and a hot glue gun.

Begin by cutting and painting the carton shapes: one for the hat, two for the rose dress, one, green, for the calyx. I prefer to colour it with watercolours because I find that this particular kind of thick paper gives beautiful shades if the colour is more liquid; if you prefer a more intense and covering result you can use acrylics.

Let the carton absorb the colour a little, but don’t wait until it is completely dry to roll the petals: wet paper will be easier to shape, and won’t break.

Roll and fix the smaller petals with hot glue, and do the same with the second row. Place the flower into the green calyx, glue and let the flower dry completely.

In the meantime paint the faces: with a small brush draw eyes and mouth on the wooden beads.

Do it so that the holes are on top and under the face: once the job is done the holes won’t be visible anymore.

Prepare the hat by drilling a hole on the top of a cone; then cut four petals out of the sides: two short ones, and two longer ones. When the colour is a little less wet, roll the petals to the top, leaving the longer petals a little more down.

Insert the twine through the hole, pass the ends through one of the smaller beads and close it with a knot.

Now that all the parts are ready, glue them together: the hat on the head (with the smaller petals over the face, like bangs), and the rose/dress under. If you like, you can make the decoration more resistant with fixative spray.

Depending on the season and on the room you want to decorate you may want to choose other kind of flowers, colours and sizes. One relaxing afternoon is enough to fill your house with lovely flower fairies!

©Mammabook

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Thank you, Silvia, for sharing this lovely upcycling project with us! Just look at the bottom of those fairies! This would also be an amazing idea for making a bouquet of flowers!

If you enjoyed this project, be sure to visit Silvia at Mammabook, on Facebook or at her Etsy shop!

This tutorial on how to upcycle egg cartons into flower fairies is part of the “Cucicucicoo’s Eco Crafters and Sewers” series! Want to see how other sewing and crafting experts upcycle materials? Then check out the other tutorials in the series!