How to Make Repurposed Folding Steamer Garden Flowers

I love these metal folding strainer steamers. Around here I find them for 25 or 50 cents each at my regular thrift stores.After I took this picture I found one more strainer to use.

Here's what they look like when they're open. They already kinda look like flowers.

The feet came off easily just by twisting them back and forth with pliers until they popped out. Some of the strainers also had a rod-type handle in the top centre spot and that came off easily too.

I spray painted the fronts...

and the backs with 4 light coats of the colours of my choice, and in the shapes that I wanted them to stay in. The spray paint helps to hold the pieces in place so they no longer move.

This is a great project for using bits of leftover spray paint.

To assemble my flowers I used screws and nuts, Marine Goop Adhesive, and stainless steel spoons that I flattened.

For the centre of this flower I used a red knob from a vintage biscuit cutter. The long screw, which I spray painted red, goes right through the cutter, the 3 strainers, and out the back.

At the back the screw is secured with a nut, and that holds the whole thing together.Here you can see that I bent the spoon glued on the back of the flower, and I used a spray painted leftover pipe for the stem.

Here's my finished trio of flowers. This is a pretty easy project with really fun results. The hardest part was the drying time for the spray paint between coats. I would just leave them and go do something else, and then do the next coat. Time to create these does not include drying time.

I also used one of these steamers to create an upcycled garden flower wind chime.

If you enjoyed this project you can find more repurposed garden art flower projects on my blog here.