Tutorial: Fabric flowers

This weekend I have to teach a short workshop at a women’s retreat. I decided to teach how to make fabric flowers. Today DD#1 and I made up some samples. I figured I better actually make one before I tried to teach how!

It’s a pretty simple craft that gives almost immediate satisfaction in a minimum amount of time, and you don’t need to know how to sew. Melting the edges of the fabric was our favorite part. It’s fun watching the fabric shrink and curl. Just be careful not to burn yourself!

Once again, this idea is not original to me. Spend just a bit of time Googling and you can find lots of instructions. Calamity Kim’s blog and Make It and Love it are just two places to find out how make these. You can use pretty much any polyester or synthetic fabric. It’s fun to use a bit of netting or lace, too, to add texture. I bought a bunch of blouses from the thrift store. Instead of sewing the layers together, I used brads. I will probably glue some buttons or rhinestones to the brads for the sake of variety. Once the flowers are assembled, they can be used as broaches or clipped to purses or sewn to hairbands. They look adorable on little girls!