Repurposed Clothes Pins Into Fall Flowers

A bunch of dollar store bamboo clothes pins that have been waiting for a project for I don’t know how long.

Because of the way time flies it’s probably been much longer than I care to remember.

According to the package, these bamboo clothes pins are rust and mildew resistant so they’re perfect for an outdoor project.

And with a little spray paint magic, these clothes pins will bloom into something fun and colorful.

Whenever I’m spray painting small items I always use one or both of my handy dandy vintage aluminum lazy susans. They’re both thrift store finds and probably cost me a dollar or two each. I’ve had these for years, and they’ve been used for many many many small spray painting projects.

I take my lazy susans outside; cover them with newspaper; place my items on top; and then I sit down and spin the lazy susans as I spray paint. It’s so much nicer than having to make my way around and around.

I gave the clothes pins two light coats of red, orange, and yellow on both sides. I didn’t have enough of the smaller clothes pins, but I found some larger ones, also bamboo, in my stash.

I think it would feel like an eternity if painting these by hand. Spray painting is so much faster.

TIP: Do a dry fit of your flowers before spray painting so you know how many clothes pins you’ll need for your flowers.

I actually liked how these flowers looked au natural. If you have a neutral boho type of vibe, which I definitely do not, these could be lovely just like this. After gluing the clothes pins in place, just spray with some polyurethane to protect and you’re done.

But I’m a color-loving gal so for me it’s all about the spray paint love.

Use whatever you like for the centers of the flowers. I used coasters for these colorful summer plastic clothes pin flowers.

But for these fall flowers I had some 6″ straw hats in my fall crafting stash. They have a lovely texture that I thought would look cool when spray painted brown. I found these three in a thrifted $2 bag of miscellaneous craft stuff a few years ago, so they probably cost about 10 cents each.

I made a template of the size of the raised hat area so that I could easily spray paint the top of the hat.

I did this because I wanted to spray paint the sides of the hats the same color as the clothes pins, to make that part of the hats sort of disappear. So, for example, with this hat I spray painted the whole hat yellow, and after that was dry I did an overspray with the brown.

And my straw hats ended up looking like this. Each one varies in size slightly, but they’re all about six inches across.

To assemble my fall flowers I’m using Goop adhesive, but any exterior grade adhesive will do. I used a toothpick to add the glue to the clothes pins.

After spray painting the clothes pins and the hats I put the flowers together and then glued one clothes pin in place at a time. I simply removed a clothes pin; pressed it to keep it open; added glue to both sides of the bottom insides, and put it back in place. By doing the clothes pins like this, it’s easy to keep track of the spacing.

Before gluing the last clothes pin in place, I added a loop of monofilament fishing line behind it for my hanger.

The brown centers of my repurposed clothes pin fall flowers remind me of cone flowers.

Before hanging I gave both sides of my fall flowers two light coats of a matte spray polyurethane, for a little extra protection.

Supplies needed for these repurposed clothes pin flowers

• bamboo/wooden clothes pins
• 3 straw hats (6″ across)
• spray paints in colors of choice
• spray polyurethane
• Goop adhesive (any exterior grade adhesive will do)
• a toothpick
• monofilament fishing line for hanging

I just love the colors of fall.

So bright and fun!

And I love how the bright colors look against this faded gray fence.

These fall flowers really pop! Just like my colorful repurposed whisk butterflies, which are hanging on the other side.

This was such a fun and magical project. I say that because, to me, color is always magical. Spray painting is always magical. And creating, upcycling, and repurposing are definitely always magical.

I hope this project has inspired you to spread a little creative and colorful magic around your own home and garden.

You can find more fall projects on my blog, Color Me Thrifty, here.