Perhaps not all of us grab a pencil when we need to jot something down, but the act of sharpening one became a source of artistic revelation for Japanese designer Haruka Misawa.

Examining the shavings of her sharpened pencil, Misawa one day discovered that they closely resemble flowers. Thus began her Pencil Flower series, a blossoming collection of fragile but colorful flowers that are sure to brighten up any space.

Misawa’s pencil flowers are technically not made from pencils. They’re made by wrapping colored paper in layers around a core, and spinning them though a sharpener. The flowers range from 15-40mm in diameter, and can come out thick and heavy, or thin to the point of being nearly transparent, depending on how they are sharpened each time.

No flower is the same, and if you look closely, you’ll see that each flower is made of petals of thin, multi-layered paper. Though we wouldn’t assume that it’s an easy project by any means, it could be an interesting project to try out on your own. If all goes well, you’ll have a frame-worthy garden of wispy, gorgeous flowers.

Misawa is the designer of the Waterscape series (which you may have heard of already), which includes her unique air bubble fish tanks. But her other works — all of which can be seen on her online portfolio — are equally as breathtaking as you would imagine them to be. Visit her portfolio to see them all!