Today I made a birthday gift wrap for Linda using the poster-child material of the recycling craft world, the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) soft-drink bottle.
I lopped off the top and, using scissors, cut vertical slices down to within 2-3 inches of the bottom of the bottle.
I massaged and rolled the resultant leaves tightly between thumb and finger, pulling the leaf slowly downward, while just avoiding forcing an actual fold into the newly-bent plastic.
I waited until this leaf bending was complete to trim the tips of the leaves into a more appealing shape than that left by the initial slicing.
Now it was time to place the gift. I loosely wrapped the box in tissue, and, since the gift’s box was a handsome piece of box-making, with a sorely-needed contrasting graphic complexity, I chose to leave part of the box exposed. The emerging box’s linear pattern constitutes the stamen of this wrap-art flower.