Bread Bag ROSE

I wanted to find a use for left over plastic bread bags and Bic pens that are out of ink. Here is how you can turn a simple plastic bag into a beautiful rose. The only other materials needed are some transparent tape, a glue stick, a cereal box, and some spray paint.

Step 1: Create File.

I used my Silhouette digital craft cutter to make my petals, so I create my vector file in the Silhouette software. If you are using a laser cutter (Epilog), you can create the vector file with Corel Draw or some other suitable vector drawing software.

I drew one petal (approximately 1" x 1" with curved sides and rounded corners- see photo), then copied and pasted it to form a row of petals. I then copied that row, pasted it, and then enlarged it by 5% to make a row of slightly larger petals. I repeated this process to create 7 rows with 7 different sizes of petals. The two smallest rows have 6 petals, the three middle rows have 5 petals, while the two largest rows have 4 petals, for a total of 35 petals.

Step 2: Prepairing to Cut.

Plastic bread bags are too light weight to cut directly without attaching them to a cutting sheet of some kind.

I like to use up old cereal boxes by cutting open and flattening out a cornflakes box. Then, cutting a 10" x 14.5" panel from the box. This fits into my Silhouette cutter perfectly.

Using a glue stick, I attach the plastic bread bag to one side of the cutting sheet, and smooth out all the air bubbles. This also works for cutting on the Epilog laser (vector cutting settings 30 power, 100 speed).

Using a razor knife, I removed the excess plastic from the edges of the cutting sheet.

Insert the sheet into the cutting machine and instruct the machine to do the cutting. When it is finished, remove the cutting sheet from the cutting machine.

Step 3: Making Petals Into a Rose.

Peel your petals from the cutting sheet, small to large, one at a time and add a piece of clear tape to the bottom right corner. The tape should start in the center of the petals and extend about 1/4" beyond the right edge with half of the tape on the petal and half of the tape below the petal.

Using your pen, attach the smallest sized petal to the end of the pen by wrapping the petal around the pen with the top of the petal a 1/2" beyond the end of the pen. Take your second petal and attach it in the same manner with it's left edge aligning with the center of the last petal, and the top of both petals even. Repeat the same procedure for the third petal.

From the first petal to the last petal, the process is the same except, when your petal size increases, the bottom of the next petal will align below the last petal (tops aligned).

Add an extra piece of tape around the pen after the last petal to wrap the pen at least twice.

Step 4: Fluff and Paint.

Starting at the last petal on the outside of the rose, pull the top of the petal outwards and downwards gently to shape the petal. Do the same to the second to last petal, and continue inwards until you have your rose looking the shape you want.

Spray paint your rose in many very light coats. If you spray heavy coats, they will take days to dry and they will cause your petals to melt and crinkle. If you like the crinkled petal effect, you can spray less coats at heavier spray amounts, but remember it will take days for it to dry. Be very careful not to let the petals stick together.