14 Days of Valentines - Day 5

Today is the fifth day in this series of 14 Days of Valentines. Yesterday, I used Plarn to tie up one of the gift card holders. So, you ask what is Plarn? Well, today is your lucky day, we're going to make a Plarn-ation!

Okay, I made that word up. We're going to make a carnation flower from Plarn, which is like a yarn made from plastic that's super strong. A Plarnation would be great for outdoor decorations and fun for Graduations, too. They are simple to make. Choose your color of Plarn, it comes in 6 colors: White, Red, Pink, Blue, Yellow and Green. I'm going to use two colors, the red and pink.

It's going to be just like making a pom pom. Take a piece of sturdy cardboard about 3" wide. First, wrap the pink plarn in the middle of the cardboard about 20 times.

Then, take the red plarn and wrap it around the cardboard left to right about 80 times.

I took  12" of the red plarn and slid it under one side of the wrapped plarn, like when you make a pom pom.

Tie the piece of plarn up, bundling the wrapped plarn. Tie it  as tight as you can and knot it two times to secure. Slide the cardboard out.

Cut apart all of the loops of plarn.

The pink plarn should be in the center,  just to give it some contrast. You can even trim this section shorter to make it stand out more. Shape the flower by fluffing the strands and trimming the ends as needed.

Take a 12" length of the red plarn and wrap around the bottom, tie securely.

Slip an 18 gauge floral wire through the bottom of the bundle. Fold the wire in half for the stem.

Place 5 satin leaves along the bottom to make a calyx. Glue in place, slightly overlapping each other.

Wrap up the stem with floral tape. Start the floral tape about 1" below the calyx. Wrap upwards to the calyx. Then, work your way back down to the end of the stem. Remember that you need to pull the floral tape slightly as you wrap to release the adhesive in the tape.

You can add leaves to the stem as you wrap it with the floral tape.

Fluff and shape the "plarnation" until you're happy with it. One roll of plarn can make a lot of flowers!

Although roses are generally associated with Valentine's Day, carnations always have a special place in my heart for that day. In my sophomore year (our first year of high school), my group of friends included four girls (my besties!) plus a couple of guys. We always hung out together and none of us were "couples". But on Valentine's Day, the guys surprised us! They each gave us girls a single stem rose and some carnation stems. It must've made them broke going to the florist near our school! So, we carried our flowers around all day, class to class. It was really sweet of them to make us all feel so special! Carnations take me back to those sweet memories.

Thank you for stopping by today and I hope your week is going great!