Making masculine embellishments

I'm a mother of one rather rambunctious three year old boy, so I am always thinking of ways to put a masculine spin on embellishments. Sometimes just inking or painting flowers and buttons is enough. But other times, I feel that creating my own items is a far better solution. A quick trip to the hardware store, or your husband's tool storage, can make for some fabulous finds. Have a look at what I hunted up:



Nuts, washers, pipe cleaners, and cardboard are just the ticket for manly embellishments. I decided to try a flourish made out of the pipe cleaners and nuts, and a large flower with the washers, cardboard, and pipe cleaners.

To begin the flourish, tie a knot on a pipe cleaner, approximately two inches from the end.



Thread the nuts onto the pipe cleaner until you have enough to make a swirly curve.




Tie another knot to keep the nuts on the pipe cleaner, and you can curl the loose ends up so it resembles a flourish. You can use it like this, OR, make another flourish in the same way. This time however, do NOT tie the pipe cleaner at the bottom.You will have two pieces, that look like this:



You can combine these two by placing the untied flourish underneath the completed one. Find a spot to tie them together by pushing the nuts apart. Wrap the pipe cleaner from the untied flourish around the completed one several times, and then cut off the excess. Smooth the edge down and you will have one large flourish ready for use.






Next I tried my hand at a cardboard flower. I cut a circle and petals from cardboard. They don't need to be the same size. and the more rough-looking, the better.



Begin by gluing the petals onto the circle. When finished, you can add a little paint to the petals. Roll up a pipe cleaner and glue it onto the center of your flower, and then add a few washers for good measure. I little bit of ink also helps give it a masculine look.





OK, so now I had two handmade manly embellishments, and I needed to see if I could get them on a page. I had the perfect pics of my son playing "Mr Fix It" with one of his new birthday toys. Here's what I came up with, I think the embellies look cool here! A bit different, but most definitely masculine. No frou-frou fluff on this baby! What do you think?