Make a Flowerball Sculpture

Are you beginning to feel a bit of spring fever? Maybe you want to put together something bright and cheery for your room at school or home. I think I have a d.i.y. sculpture project that you'll enjoy making. All it takes to build one is a glue stick, a pair of scissors, a plastic lid, a pencil and 5 pieces (or more depending on how many colors you want) of colored copy paper. I found the project at Bloesomkids blog and after some trial and error, I was able to put one together. Through the pictures below, I will explain it to you as simply as possible. 

Step one: Fold each piece of copy paper in half the long way. You'll need 20 circles total to build your flowerball, so this takes some of the cutting work out of it for you. Take a lid, like one from a peanut butter jar or use a clean yogurt cup, and trace the circle twice on each piece of paper. You can use whatever size circles you want, but I suggest keeping it small the first time around. Keeping the paper folded, cut out each circle so you get two for every one you cut :) 

Step two: Now you need to work on the folds and make each circle into these cute little triangles.....

Fold in half lengthwise to make a taco, then again so you have a 1/4 piece of pie. This will make intersecting lines or creases. These creases are now your guidelines and you will see them once you open the circle back up for the next set of folds.

Now you will begin making the circles into those cute little triangles and you will use the creased guidelines to help you get everything just right. To begin, fold your paper as I have done above, bringing the edge of the circle up to the horizontal guideline and keeping the creases on top of one another.

The second fold is the trickiest in my opinion - you want really crisp corners all the way around. This fold should begin at the corner of that first fold and end at the next guideline that you run into. 

Finish out the equilateral triangle by folding the last edge of the circle. Watch the corners and again, get them as crisp as possible.

Step three: Arrange the triangles into three "pods" as above. The two circular sections are comprised of 5 triangles each with the corners facing in and the long row has 10 triangles with the "top" corners going up, down, up, down, etc. Use a glue stick to put them together and rub the edges together really well so they are "tight." 

Sorry about the change in colors.....

Step four: Take the long row of 10 triangles that are glued together and form them into a ring so that all of the flaps are on the outside of your ring and glue the two ends together.

Work on gluing the two "pods" of 5 together - this will form the top and bottom of the flowerball. The sections will rise up slightly as you glue them - don't worry, that's natural. Make sure the flaps stay on the outside.

Step five: Arrange one of the circular pods on top of the ring as you like and glue the flaps together - a flap from the ring and a flap from each circle will join up for a total of 5 times. Do the same for the remaining pod and the empty side of the ring and voila, you are done!!