Flowers!

So Mum www.etsy.com/uk/shop/13Alternatives (shameless plugging) and I, started on the flowers this week.

The idea is to make all the flowers from fabric, as a cheaper alternative to buying fresh flowers.
For one, I wanted flowers that I could keep and secondly, it left the door open for striking colours and imaginative ideas.

For the table flowers we are keeping with blues and whites with possibly reds and greys as accent colours. At this stage, it is all experimental, we are just seeing what works well.

Table flowers 

For the bridesmaids flowers we are doing greys and yellows.

These flowers will be going on the girls hair accessories and sashes.

The white and cream ones are for the flower girl. 

Bridesmaid and flower girl flowers, for sashes and hair clips

OK so here is the tutorial. It basically involves burning the edges of the fabric to get the curled petal effect. We did find, after burning our fingers a lot, that some fabrics work better then others. Some just burn and dont curl.
We found that hair curlers where very handy in getting the extra curl on stubborn fabrics.

Step 1.

Cut out the petal shapes in your chosen fabric.
We used a crafting die cutter with various sizes of petals for this as it was a lot quicker then by hand, seeing as for each flower you will need about 8 - 10 layers.

Step 2.

Gently run the edges of the petals over a candle flame until they begin to curl. It dosen't take long so watch your fingers.

It doesn't matter if the edges burn too much, when you add the layers, it will just add to the texture.

Step 3.

Using a pin, layer up each petal one on top of the other. Remember to off set each layer for a more natural effect.

For some of the flowers, we used different fabrics on each layer to create a more textured effect.
You will need maybe 8-10 layers, 4 or 5 bigger petals followed by a few medium sized and a few little ones.

Step 4.

Sew all the layers together.
For the centre we used small beads and buttons, but for a more authentic look you may like to use a brown or black rounded bit of fabric.



For the bigger table flowers we used heart shaped petals.
Instead of holding the flower by hand, we placed a pin in a piece of sponge and placed the ends of the petals on top in a circular pattern.

The light blue fabric crinkled well, however with the darker fabric we had to spray the petals with starch first and then curl the edges to get it to stay in shape.

Happy crafting