Repurposed Corn Fork Flowers for Fall

How to make corn fork flowers

It’s super easy to make flowers by repurposing everyday things, like these fun corn fork flowers that you can create for your fall garden.

I love making DIY flowers so much, and I’m on a personal quest to create flowers by repurposing inexpensive every day items that everyone can find.

Like these yellow plastic corn forks that I’ve been collecting for a while now. I usually find them in small bunches inside sandwich bags in the 25 cent bin at my local thrift store.

I’ve also seen this type of corn forks at the dollar store as well, so if you don’t want to wait to find them at thrift stores head to your dollar store and see what you can find.

Wherever you find them, they’re bright and sunny, and I always knew that some day these corn forks would make some pretty awesome repurposed flowers for fall.

And that some day is finally here.

In addition to some corn forks, all you need to create these fall flowers are some styrofoam balls.

I’m using 3 inch, 2 inch, and 1 1/2 inch balls. You could use all the same size if you like, but I like mixing it up a bit.

Creating repurposed corn fork flowers

First, I did a dry run with my corn forks to make sure my idea worked.

And it did.

I also wanted to get a sense of how many corn forks each styrofoam ball would need, just to make sure I had enough.

Spray painting styrofoam balls

To sort of mimic the brown centers of sunflowers, I spray painted the styrofoam balls with a dark brown color.

Above is the first coat of spray paint.

Something quite magical happens when spray paint hits styrofoam balls.

You could stick them onto long skewers if you want, but I wanted to be up close and personal to watch the magic happen.

So I just put them on toothpicks, and held them as I sprayed.

You start to get a texture happening as the spray paint eats into the styroform a bit.

When I started seeing those little crevices forming I gave the balls another shot of spray paint, making sure to get it into those little holes.

Above is after two coats of spray paint.

You could do this all day if you like, but you might be left with just toothpicks. lol.

You really can’t predict how this goes, you just stop when you’re happy.

I stopped after four coats because I loved how delicious they looked. They kind of look like round brownies, but please resist the temptation to eat them. I’m absolutely 1000% sure that they are not a healthy snack. 🙂

Now they need to dry completely before the corn forks are added.

The spray paint makes the styrofoam sticky because it’s actually melting it a bit to create those lovely nooks and crannies. So I stuck them into a a styrofoam tree and I Ieft them to dry overnight.

Putting the corn fork flowers together

I chose the best side of each brown center and inserted my corn forks around the balls in a way that looked good to me.

The secret here was that I practiced on my dry run, so I knew about how far apart to place the corn forks.

You don’t want to have to reposition them too many times.

The small one was the trickiest because the forks tend to hit each other when inserted, but I was still able to make it work.

I thought about using E6000 glue, but I decided not to because I use it to many things but I wasn’t sure how that would work. I’ve never used it on styrofoam before.

The corn forks are very snug and I want to see how they do without any glue.

Displaying the corn fork flowers in the garden

After giving them some spray urethane love for a little extra protection, I glued them onto long metal skewers and set them into one of my gardens.

You could spray paint the skewers green if you like, but I didn’t think it was necessary.

Don’t have skewers? Straightened metal hangers would work too. Just make sure you get them into the ground at least 5-6 inches for stability.

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Supplies needed to create Corn Fork Flowers for Fall

• yellow plastic corn forks
• styrofoam balls
• brown spray paint
• metal skewers for stems

Here they are looking bright and happy amidst some fabulous Russian Sage.

And beside an annual ornamental grass that I forget the name of right now, but it has amazing plumes all season long.

If you don’t want to put them in the garden you could attach them to a fall wreath, or add them to an indoor floral display.

But they do fit right in here, adding a pop of sunny happiness to my fall garden.

This was such a fun and easy project and, like my repurposed beer cap flowers, just goes to show that flowers can be made out of so many repurposed things.

And my quest continues. 🙂

It would be greatly appreciated if you would pin this project to your favorite Pinterest board, and also share it with your friends.

Thanks so much for reading and until next time,

keep on keepin’ on!

XOX