Recycled Phone Book Flowers « The Hybrid Chick

Recycled Phone Book Flowers

By tettletop20 Friday July 16, 2010

I had a phone book that was no longer being used and I just couldn’t bear to throw it in the recycling bin without trying to make something first! I recently cleaned off a shelf in my family room and I needed something to put back up there. I had an empty shadow box that would fit perfectly on the shelf and I just had to do something crafty!

Supplies I used for the flowers:

Old Phone Book
Red Line adhesive
Basic tools (scissors, circle punch, paper cutter)

Supplies I used for the shadow box frame:

Endless Summer by the Digichick Designers
Craft knife
Ruler
Cutting Mat
Red River Linen Paper

I knew I wanted to make three flowers that were all different. For the first flower, I took about 4 or 5 phone book pages and inserted them into my circle punch. I also took my paper cutter and cut some long strips of paper for the second flower and came up with this.

Then I took an round item that was larger in diameter than the punched circles and made three circles in some basic cardstock and a phone book page. I don’t have a large circle punch so this is how I achieved making the base for each flower.

The next step was to add adhesive to the base so a phone book page could be the background an no white would show through any empty areas. Then I added more adhesive on top of the phone book page so the actual petals would stick.

I took a punched circle and rolled it and then placed it on the base. When I was done going around the entire base, I took my scissors and cut along the edge of the base so there would be nothing over the edge and all even.

For the second flower, I took some more punched circles of phone book and crumpled them up in my hands and then added them to a flower base.

For the third flower, I took the strips of phone book paper I cut earlier and folded them in half and went around the entire base for the flower.

For each flower, I added some embellishments courtesy of Martha Stewart crafts and Jolee’s.

The next step in the process was creating the background and matte for my shadowbox. I chose some papers from the Endless Summer kit that would go well with the colors in my family room and this is what I came up with!

The fun thing about this is that I can change this up as I please – take a different kit and make a different background or matte for a fresh look every once in awhile. I hope you enjoyed learning how to make flowers with an old phone book!