Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Lots and Lots of Flowers!

Another great gift idea for any of the ladies in your life (big or small) is fabric flowers.  Fabric flowers are great because they can be used in so many different ways.  They can be attached to ponytail holders, hair clips, headbands, safety pins, magnets, picture frames, or used to embellish a tee shirt or pillow... just to name a few.  So, I thought it would be fun to compile a bunch of my favorite flower tutorials from around the web.

 Note: A few are made with paper, but could easily be adapted to fabric.

1. Ribbon Peony  2. Fabric Flower  3. Flower Brooch  4. Sunflower  5. Six Petal Flower  6. Frayed Flower  7. Rose  8. Button Flower  9. Loop Flower  10. Felt Flower  11. Embroidered Flower  12. Fabric Flower

Now for my little contributions to this collection, which will seem kinda lame compared to the rest of these amazing creations.. but since this is my blog I have to add somehow right?!  I have two flowers to show you.  The first is the "burnt felt flower" which I made a bunch of to attach to ponytail holders.  They look super cute in your hair.  And the second is the "ribbon rose" which you saw on my family rules frame a few days ago.

The Burnt Felt Flower


Now I have seen this technique used with many different fabrics and they can look really beautiful, but I really like this particular one because it is super easy, you could bang these out by the dozens, and super cheap. 

All you do is make three circles out of felt (they don't need to be perfect), each one slightly smaller then the last.  Take a lighter and burn the edges of each circle. (be careful!)  Then line them up and hot glue them together.  Finish off by putting a dab of hot glue right in the middle and adding a few beads.  That's it, couldn't be easier!

The Ribbon Rose


To make this rose you take a length of wired ribbon (the longer the length, the larger your rose)  Start by pulling a small amount of the wire out of one end of the ribbon and bending the wire over to secure.  Then gather the ribbon along that wire as tightly as possible.  Once done clip off the excess wire, leaving a small amount on this end to bend over and secure like you did before.  To make the center neater, take the none gather corner and hot glue it to the gathered corn on the same end.  Now starting from that same side, take the gathered end and start wrapping it around itself to form your rose.  To secure, hot glue the rose to a small circle of felt.  Its kinda hard to explain but super easy, just try it. 

(Sorry for the lack of pictures, I wasn't planning on doing tutorials on these flowers when I made them.)

 If you have a flower tutorial you'd like to share, I'd love to see it! Please add a link in the comments