Daisy Head Mayzey

Dr. Seuss' birthday is March 2nd and last year my kids and I went to a party for him.  We had lots of fun, not the least of which involved making our own costumes.  I decided to go as Daisy Head Mayzey, so I made a head piece to give me that flower-sprouting-out-of-my-hair look.  Tell yourself how lucky you are, because I'm going to tell you how I did it!  This is a seriously easy project that I did in about 20 minutes the morning of the party.  If I can do it, so can you!

Materials
2 pieces of white copy paper
1 piece of yellow construction paper
3 green pipe cleaners
Scotch tape
Pencil
Ruler
Scissors
Bowl or small plate to trace the circumference of your daisy
Drinking Glass to trace the circumference of your flower's center
Bobby pins and a hair elastic to attach the flower in your hair.
Optional: Fabric headband to pin the flower to if your hair is too short to pull back.


Instructions
1. With both pieces of white paper stacked together, trace around the bowl or small plate and cut the circle out of both thicknesses of paper.  Tape the 2 circles together in the center.
2. On the yellow paper, trace around the glass.  Cut out the circle.
3. Center the yellow circle on the white circle and trace lightly around it.  Set the yellow circle aside.
4. Use the ruler to draw lines criss-crossing through the center of the white circle.  These will be your petals.
5. Take  the 2 white circles still stacked together and cut along the lines, stopping at the edge of the inner circle.  You may choose to round out the ends of the petals.
6. Tape the yellow circle to the center.
7.  Holding the 3 green pipe cleaners together, begin twisting the pipe cleaners.  To make leaves on the stem, make a loop in one of the pipe cleaners and twist it once or twice.  Continue to twist the 3 pipe cleaners together.  After a few more twists, make a leaf in another pipe cleaner.  Twist them together again and then make a leaf in the 3rd pipe cleaner.  Once you've twisted them down to the end, make a loop at each end of the stem and fold it up to a 90 degree angle.
8. Taping across one loop, attach the stem to the back of the flower.

Your flower is constructed!!  Let's get it ready to wear.

1. Coil the stem around a lipstick tube or 2 fingers to make it into a spring.  This will make the flower more stable and allow it to bounce.  Originally I used a pencil, but I found that a slightly fatter spring worked better.
2. Ruffle the petals of your flower by gently bending each of the top layer of petals, one up, the next one down, etc.  You don't need to do a hard crease, just a little pull.  For the bottom layer, I bent every other one down and left the rest alone.
3. Bobby pin the flower into your hair.  I found it stayed put very well when I pulled back the top of my hair with the hair elastic, slid the loop in the end of the stem up under the hair in the center, and then bobby pinned across the loop.  If you have short hair, you could also wear a fabric headband (something with strong elastic, not too stretchy) and bobby pin the flower to that.  You could also hot glue the flower to a plastic headband.

You're ready for your Dr. Seuss extravaganza!

~Ellie, Maîtresse des Fleurs de Papier