Egg Carton Roses – Make This SWEET Upcycled Bouquet!

Welcome to my egg carton roses tutorial! Do you keep and save cardboard egg cartons? Good on you! Egg carton flowers are a highly popular “eco-craft” – there are all kinds of different flowers you can make; and they will all look equally awesome on display.

I decided on roses as I have already made paper versions of them so I will stick with them, especially since they are my favorite flower (after orchids)!

In this tutorial I will show you how to do some egg carton roses that you can show off in a vase and display, and adorn your environment, or use to decorate for special occasions.

Your guests will be charmed and you can tell them what they are made of they will be amazed. So let’s get down to work!

Materials

Get your cartons – since you can get a dozen roses out of one carton you only need one! Other materials needed include:

Acrylic paint (I am using this brand and it will work very well for this project as cardboard is kind of porous) I’ve also chosen shades of red and pink so the roses will look a little “variegated” is that the right word? I think it is.

Few paint brushes, some water, good scissors. Lastly, a hot glue gun or some strong bond adhesive (I like these two brands best)

Here are some red and pink shades I think would work very well if you want to have classic red roses…

Apple Barrel Acrylic Paint Valentines – Bright Red and Candy PinkFolkArt Metallic Acrylic Paint in Assorted Colors (2 oz), 493, Bright RedDecoArt Dazzling Metallics 2-Ounce Royal Ruby Acrylic Paint

 

Cutting Your Roses

I begin by trimming off the sides of the egg carton – keep that too – we’ll be using it as well.

Then cut the compartments at the sides, cut each cup apart, they will have “peaks and valleys” (kind of like those foam mattress toppers) Trim these into rounded petal shapes.

There will be a little loose fibrous material, which is normal – don’t strive to make them all look perfect. You may need to cut down to the bottom a little to make it easier for the petals to “flare out” a little bit.

Repeat with all the other cup compartments…here is what my first one looks like.

Now go back to the strip on the side of the egg carton, this is the part that closes the carton; it has tabs on the front. Cut that part and round off the sides.. Like this.

The tabs in the middle will be a little bumpy. That’s OK; they can be smoothed down.

Obviously we need more than that one strip for each flower petal, so you may have to cut long strips form the other sides and maybe even the top of the carton. Try to cut in in a scalloped shape because this will create a more natural look. Roses (like all flowers) are not linear so whatever you can do to make them have natural contours will help.

Roses , like all flowers, are not linear so whatever you do to give them natural contours will help!Click To Tweet

Take the strips and roll them starting from one side to the end. These strips will form the inner petals.I rolled them and then unrolled them to be sure they would fit into the compartment/flower bud I cut earlier.

Painting

Paint all of the cut flower buds and strips. I am using variations of red/fuschia, you can always go for white or peach, or yellow as roses in real life come in a variety of colors and shades.

I don’t know if you can tell or not, but I painted one side of the strips a slightly different shade from the other, so when I go to roll them back up they will have a little bit of color variation.

When the paint dries now take the strips and roll them back up into the coiled shapes, and glue them into the compartment. You may have to touch up some spots with additional paint, I needed to as well as there were a few cardboard spots showing. Now let that part dry.

Attaching the Stems

Now we are going to make the stems for the roses! Get some bamboo skewers, and take the sharp point and pierce the base of the finished rosebuds push it through. The coiled inner bud will easily hide the point of the stick, which you can trim off with scissors.

Add a little more glue to seal the sticks off. I would also add a coat of varnish to protect them, I used spray on sealant, they have a nice satin finish now.

When everything dries you can display them however you like, and enjoy! I’ve got mine in a small vase I filled with dry rice which makes very good vase filler. You can adorn the vase a little too, I did with a little string in a matching color and a couple of beads on the ends.

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Aren’t they pretty? I guess you could make them “scented” if you like with some fragrance mist, but that’s up to you. Wow…after this, looks like I have done everything to do with roses except for growing them! Which is a whole other story…Enjoy your new egg carton roses bouquet 🌹!