Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Tuesday Tutorial: Burned Edge Flowers {with special guest, Natalie}

Today I'm so honored to have a guest poster for Tuesday Tutorial! Her name is Natalie and we've recently become bloggy friends. Isn't the cyber world great? You get to meet tons of creative people that can show you new fun things. I'll let Natalie tell you a little about herself and her blog and then she's going to share a super cute tutorial with us. Without further ado...

Hello, there! My name is Natalie and I do a creative blog called Corduroy DreamsI am a full-time mom to 2 beautiful children who I love and who inspire me everyday. I have the best husband in the world, and I am admittedly a terrible housewife. I would rather do other things than clean my house... Who can blame me?

I'm so lucky to be featured on Amy's blog today. She is so creative and I just LOVE her jewelry! She recently shared a tutorial on my blog on how to make a Ruffle Headband... so cute!

Today I want to share with you how to make one of my favorite flowers. I love to put these in my little, red-headed girl's hair. I'm also going to show you how to make a flower-bunched headband for you! {These flowers aren't just to go on heads, though. You could stick them on anything, really.}



The most important thing about making these flowers is getting the right fabric. It needs to be a polyester fabric, so it will melt and not burn. Mine is called "silk essence" from Joann. An 1/8 yard could probably make 5 or so flowers, depending on how big you want them.
So take your fabric and start cutting out circles. I used about 5 or 6 circles per flower, so cut some big and then keep going smaller and smaller. 


Your circles don't have to be perfect. 


Start melting the edges. {It's hard to get a good picture when you're playing with fire and trying to get a good shot.}
Be careful not to burn your fabric. The more you melt, the more it's going to curl up, so just practice until you get the hang of it.

Then hot glue the layers together.



This is your flowers will look like when they are done. I made 3 {one big and two small} for my headband. 


Then you can stick a jewel or a button or whatever you want in the center. I did jewels and buttons for my little girl, but chose to leave mine plain.


If you're doing a hair clip, just hot glue a lined alligator clip on and you can clip it to a headband for the little ones.




If you want to do the headband, glue your flowers down to a peice of felt. Make sure they are bunched how you want them to be on the headband.


I only had pink felt {My trip to Joann with the kids this morning was like torture, so I forgot my brown felt.} So I glued it onto brown fabric first {just in case any showed through}, then felt {to stabilize}.


Make sure you trim off any excess.


Then glue to your headband. I wanted mine on the side, with the big flower closest to the top. But you can arrange yours however.


Then glue another piece of felt on the back.



And wallah!
Enjoy!




Thanks, Amy, for letting me share this with your readers. I hope you'll "follow" all of my crazy adventures at Corduroy Dreams

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5 comments:

  1. What do you use to burn the material? Is that blow torch? Do them make them smaller for crafty items like this?

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  2. Yes, it looks like she did use a small torch. They make smaller torches for cooking, jewelry making and crafts that are smaller than blow torches. Just ask at the hardware/craft store for a butane torch and that should help you find it!

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  3. It kind of looks like a torch, doesn't it? But nope, it's just a really powerful lighter. It was actually REALLY hot and so it was hard to melt the edges without burning them. Any regular lighter will work.

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  4. I usually use a candle :) It works very well, and is easier, because you can use both hands to hold the fabric

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  5. Ive been wanting to make these for ages. Do they work using normal satin?

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