While rinsing out milk cartons for recycling one day, I wondered how they might be ReCreated into something decorative.
I started by experimenting with the plastic to find it’s characteristics. As it’s food grade 2 plastic, it is virtually impervious to absorbing anything – that includes glue and paint! A hot-glue gun is the only glue I had any success with, but it is brittle and care has to be taken that petals don’t snap off when working with it.
I began by cutting petal and leaf shapes and, using a heat gun, molded them around a piece of wooden dowel to curve them.
I managed to add pastel shading with a “staining” method, using a rag and alcohol inks to rub colour onto the petals. The next step was gluing the petals to the stem with a hot-glue gun . The flower stems are plastic balloon sticks, which is the same grade plastic as the milk cartons. I also stained these with colour. I found that I had to reinforce the stems by inserting wire inside, as the first ones I made snapped! The wire also enables the stem to curve slightly, making it look more natural than a straight stick.
The sepals and leaves are then secured with florist tape to the stem. I chose white tape which I also stained so the colours matched as closely as possible.
