Paper Towel Tie-Dyed Flowers

My children get excited when I suggest a craft (and my oldest also suggests them).  I love to do this for them, but with the age range from two to seven, it's not always easy to find a craft that excites all of them...and the time to do it.  Using paper towels, pipe cleaners, and markers, we made a few cute tie-dyed flowers.  Even my five year old son loved making these tie-dyed flowers.  Thank you to Viva Vantage paper towels for sponsoring this post.
To make your own easy tie-dyed flowers, begin by gathering your materials.



Supplies Needed

paper towels (sturdy like Viva Vantage)
markers
pipe cleaners
water (in a spray bottle or eye dropper)
scissors
protective surface
newspaper to dry

1. Color

We began by coloring our sturdy Viva Vantage paper towels with regular Crayola markers on a protected surface.  Chose two or three colors that blend nicely.  

It's nice to leave a bit of white on the paper towel.  Also consider coloring lightly, even with the side of the marker.

 2. Spritz

Place the paper towels on a magazine or newspaper to spray each paper towel with water.  As an alternate, you could also use a an eye dropper.  Allow to dry.  

3. Fold and Secure

Accordion fold (like a fan) the paper dry paper towel.  Tie a pipe cleaner near the center.

4. Snip

Cut the ends of the folded paper towel.  Cut in a round or pointed style, depending on what you want petals to look like.  In the photo above (highlighted with the arrow), I made additional petals by cutting an inverted "V" at the point.  

5. Fluff

Fluff the colorful paper towel flower, and fold the pipe cleaner to fit in your vase. Create a leaf, if desired.  This leaf is a spiral.

Easy paper towel tie-dyed flowers #craft #paper

The Stretchy, Strong Difference

This was my first time buying Viva Vantage paper towels.  I appreciate the Choose-A-Size style and how they are very durable and stretchy.  I washed all of the dishes in the sink below, including pots, pans, plastics, and the bowl from my mixer (with cookie dough remnants).  I washed all of them in my soapy water with just ONE small paper towel.  Remember, they are Choose-A-Size, so it was fairly small, but it still didn't shred because it's designed to stretch and work.
I decided to take it a step further on a different day.  When I have a really dirty or greasy dish, sometimes I skip the dishcloth and go straight to a paper towel, but typically it tears and doesn't scrub well.  I had roasted potatoes in a baking dish at a high temperature.  I was able to scrub that clean with just one towel without soaking the dish first.  It took a little elbow grease, but the paper towel held up surprisingly well.  I also scrubbed my slow cooker clean after cooking a whole chicken in it.  I let it soak for about ten minutes and then scrubbed it with just one Viva Vantage towel.  
I found Viva Vantage paper towels to be durable and didn't break up on me like other towels have in the past when a bit wet (and these were soaking wet).  I'll be looking to use Viva Vantage again (call it breaking up with my old towels if you like).  If you are looking for sturdy paper towels who can really clean for you, I suggest you try Viva Vantage.  I like the Choose-A-Size and the Walmart price.

What do you look for in a paper towel?  Will you give Viva Vantage a try?

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post.  All experiences and  opinions are my own.
~ Annette
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11 comments

  1. Adorable! I'm forwarding this on to my great nieces. They will love making the flowers.

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  2. I always like the choose a size towels because I can get the smaller size towels, not the old full size ones.

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  3. These are so cute and how simple to do. Love it. Cathy

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  4. Cute craft idea! And those towels look a lot better than what I use.

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  5. I have never once thought to do dishes with a paper towel! I'm impressed!

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  6. Wow, what a fun idea for a craft!

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  7. Well! I can't say that I ever would have had the thought to tie-dye paper towels!! THAT'S an intriguing craft idea!

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