I saw this original Pin on Pinterest and fell in love. I thought these would be lovely cascading down in front of a window. They could be used as tie-backs on curtains, positioned along the curtain rod, or draped on the corners of a four-poster bed. You control the colors (sort of) – at least you control the tone of the colors. The saturation is completely up to the interaction of food coloring with the egg carton material. This would be a lovely project with friends or children. As you will see, a single egg carton doesn’t go very far. So patience or a team effort would really help this project along.
Original pin – from an Anthropolgie store window
Basically you start with egg cartons and remove the lids.
You need to cut them apart to create “cups”.
The outer shape of the cup is completely up to you. I followed the blog link from the original Pin, but you could easily keep the edges squared off like the Anthrolopogie window display.
The next step is to dye them. I used food coloring with water. I wanted a more saturated look, so I used a higher amount of food coloring. The color combinations are up to you. I would suggest prepping all the flower cups first and then dying all at one time so that you keep color consistency. I also recommend wearing gloves to prevent dyed skin.
I dried them on a paper towel with wax paper underneath to avoid any transfer to the counter surface. While the flowers are still wet, you can add food coloring direct to the flower and allow it to saturate and spread out. You can also “paint” the food coloring on as well.
After the flowers are completely dry, you can start to string them. The spacing and placement is completely up to you. I used a green raffia covered wire to string the flowers. I twisted the wire around a pencil to create a spiral to hold the flowers in place. You could easily use twine, yarn, real sticks. Be as creative as you’d like.
I created 3 strands of varying lengths using the 12 cups from a single egg carton. To get the effect I would like, it seems I’ll needs at least another 4 egg cartons. You can add leaves as well using the leftover material from cutting apart the egg cartons. So many possibilities, yet so little time!
Flirting with Creativity 