These started off as an impromptu art project that my kid had so much fun making. All you need to make a flower is a pipe cleaner and some beads. We had the materials already, but you can find everything you need in the kid’s art supply section at Target. (The picture above is one I made earlier, using 2 pipe cleaners that I twisted together to make a bigger flower. Just double the amount of beads used if you want to make a larger flower).

Start by stringing beads to the middle of the pipe cleaner. Beading can be a good exercise in counting or making patterns with your kid.

We used 27 beads, leaving plenty of extra pipe cleaner on either side . You’ll need that extra pipe cleaner to make a stem.

Twist the pipe cleaner tightly a few times to make a teardrop or petal shape.

Take your finger and press down in the middle of your teardrop shape to make a heart. You can redo this many times until you are happy with the shape of your heart. You will have 2 pieces of pipe cleaner left.

Twist the shorter tail of the pipe cleaner around the longer piece tightly until you have one long pipe cleaner.

Add green beads to make a stem. Once adding the beads, we twisted the pipe cleaner about halfway down to make a leaf. Adding too many green beads may start to make your flower too flimsy. We added about 20 green beads and curled the remaining pipe cleaner around my finger. A heart flower!

Now for the instructions…