Tutorial: DIY Fabric Flowers

Aaaaand I’m back! Hope y’all didn’t miss me too much as I’m now slowly getting back into the groove.

My Nana’s service was very nice and it was great meeting her friends and seeing most of my family. Her absence still hurts but now I’m going to dedicate my future projects to her since she loved that I sew.

As promised, I’ll show you how to make one version of the flowers featured in my wedding bouquet:

Remember me?

We’ll concentrate on the ones that aren’t rosettes (lower left grey flowers, I’m looking at you!). Supplies are as follows:

1. Candle

2. Lighter

3. Ruler

4. Satin-like fabric

5. Rotary cutter and mat or scissors

6. Hot glue gun with stick

7. Floral wire

8. Floral tape

9. Beads or pearls

10. (not pictured, oops) Thread and needle

11. (optional) Pretty vase… or sake bottle in my case… to showcase your creation!

So first you’ll want to cut squares in varying sizes. My largest square was about 2 1/2 inches and I scaled down in 1/2 inch increments for the others.

The more different sizes you make, the more layers your flower will have. My goal was to make 3 flowers with 4 layers of “petals.”

Next, round off the corners, and don’t worry about it being perfect because….

… we are going to BURN THESE, MWAHAHAHAAA!!!

Ahem… yeah. So CAREFULLY light your candle and hold the edges up to the fire until they start curling.

You don’t need to stick them RIGHT IN THE FIRE as they’ll explode in flames and melt all over the place and probably scar you for life. Just hovering them above the flame is enough. I kept a curve while I was burning them because I wanted to control the shape of the petal and make sure the edges curled toward the shiny side of the fabric.

Voila!

Keep going and melt/shape the edges of all of the pieces.

Now it’s time to put it all together! Take your biggest “petal” and layer increasingly smaller petals on top. Take your needle and thread and stick it right through the center.

Looking like a flower!

Next, start threading your pearls or beads. Once you have as many pearls as you’d like, knot off the thread in the back of the flower. The knot will be covered later.

I chose to only have 3 pearls as I think it’s a nice finish.

Trifecta of pretties

Almost there! Now it’s time to prepare for the stem. Cut another square of fabric, probably about a square inch or more and burn the edges like the petals. Snip a small slit in the middle.

Take two pieces of floral wire (I cut one long piece in half) and bend the ends just a tiny bit and put them through the slit.

Get your hot glue gun nice and toasty and glue the “butt” piece to the back of your flower.

Next, wrap the floral tape around the wire to keep things steady and you’re done!

Start the tape in between the wires so it’ll stay in place while you’re wrapping.

You can tape all of your flower stems together so they stay nice and tight for your vase/bouquet/whatever you want!

I had some extra white flowers left over from my wedding, so they decided to join the party.

These make cute gifts or are great for decorating your space! Looking at them makes me so happy.

So I urge you to go make someone else happy and give them some flowers handmade with love that will last forever. I brought some white flowers to my Nana’s funeral and was able to put it in the mausoleum* with her casket. So now a piece of my love will always be with her until we meet again. ❤

-RED

*In New Orleans, we don’t bury our dead underground. Instead people are “buried” above ground in what’s called a mausoleum… it helps keep everyone tidy when your city is below sea level!