Well last Tuesday was Valentine’s day and I wanted to do something special for Aaron and my Grandmother. I had planned on making a bouquet of origami roses but all of the patterns I found where far too difficult to make and I ended up just getting frustrated.
Eventually I remembered that I knew how to make lilies so I made a bouquet of lilies. (See picture below).

If you would like to make the origami lilies you can find a simple and easy pattern here: http://www.origami-instructions.com/origami-flowers.html

To make the bouquet you will need:

• Paper Clips
• Sticks (I happened to have sticks with holes in the center of them, if you don’t have anything like that you can drill holes into the center)
• Origami paper (NOT regular paper) – Double sided color or one sided doesn’t matter.
• Hot Glue Gun

After you make the origami flowers, simply cut a little bit off of the bottom and unbend a paper clip. You will need to straighten the longest side out as straight as possible and then ‘fold’ the short side to make a little loop. (See picture A below).
After you have done that, put the paper clip into the stick. Make sure you put the longest side in. After that, hot glue around the base of the paper clip where it attaches to the stick.

How you should have your paper clip folded

Wait a few moments for the glue to dry and then stick the short side of the paper clip into the base of the flower (careful not to tear the entire bottom of the flower to bits!) Then hot glue the base of the flower where it touches the stick. Make sure you leave just a little room and don’t smash the base down – this part is essential because you might want to bend the flowers later to arrange the bouquet.
If your flower is still twirling around the paperclip hot glue the inside a little bit. Don’t stick your hand down into the flower, or you could smash it, just drip the hot glue down the center.

Now, do this for all of your flowers and then arrange the sticks together how you think it looks best. Hot glue the sticks together, making sure not to move them around too much or else you could lose where you wanted it. Let it cool and then wa-la! Instant cute bouquet of lilies! You can do this with almost any origami flowers.

Origami lily bouquet by Tanya Cline

Hope you enjoy this little fun project you can do with your kids or by yourself! They make a great, silly gift. And remember, if your lilies don’t turn out perfect don’t worry! Practice makes perfect and you’ll get better with each lily.

Recently I thinking to myself gee, I sure wish I had a fluffy pillow!
And so it was. I remembered that I had some excess blue fluffy material in my closet and I just happened to have an old pillow I never used anymore that I could recycle the fluff to put into this new pillow!

I’m not sure on the material I used. Nor am I sure of the dimensions of the pillow (too lazy to check at the moment), but it is almost a perfect square (by eye of course)!

However, despite my wanting of a new fluffy pillow, I did not make this for myself. No, in fact I made this for my boyfriend! He had seen the material two months ago when I was cleaning out my closet and he mentioned that it would make a great pillow. So I made him one for Christmas. Only took about two hours to sew and stuff!

The Fluffy Blue Pillow Christmas Present by Tanya Cline