Tutorial - Making Fabric Flowers

I'll bet you thought I forgot I told you I'd show you how to make these, didn't you?

Well, I didn't - but had stamp club on Saturday, and have been working on the family calendars, so the fabric flowers had to take a bit of a back seat.

While trying to decide what I'd blog about tonight, I just bit the bullet and made a new one, so that I could photograph the various steps involved.

DISCLAIMER: This is how *I* make the flowers. I've spoken with others who are making them very differently than I do. So, check around, see which method will work best for you. Or, alternatively, try them all and see which you prefer!

So, here goes:

Select a number of fabrics that coordinate with each other. Remember how at first I didn't "have it together" for this step? Well, I think I've got it now!

Check these out!

They're a pretty good set of coordinating fabrics, don't you think?




Next, select 4 folded pieces of fabric (this will give you 8 flower pieces) and decide which flower die you'd like to use.

I used Flowers Layers #3 die (Item 114527 $15.95).

I chose this one because all three flowers are quite different from one another, and I'm curious how they'll all turn out...



Top the fabric pieces with the CREASE PAD (Item # 113476 $8.95).

You'll notice I've written "crease pad" on this. That's because there are a lot of different pieces for the Big Shot that are black, and over time, I've gotten confused about what is what.

Sometimes you have to do these things, in order to keep your sanity! ha ha

The function of the crease pad is to help build up something a little more solid for the fabric to push against, in hopes you won't get tiny little threads that don't cut cleanly. I'm still working on the build up to achieve a clean cuts, but will get there eventually. It's one of those "play with it til you're happy with it" situations. And it changes, according to the fabrics you're using.



Next I placed a shim on top of the crease pad.

The crease pad comes with two of these opaque shims.

DO NOT DO WHAT I DID - the first time I used one of these I placed it directly above the die, and I now have tiny little opaque flowers floating around that I really don't want to throw away, but which I have no idea how, nor where, to store!



Now I've added yet more shims. This time I'm using CS. There are two pieces for this stack. I contemplated using three, but when I started to crank it through Mr. Big, he seemed to think it was too much.

So, I backed off to two - and really should have used all three. I did end up with the fabrics not cutting cleanly, and had to spend about 5 minutes freeing the flowers from the rest of the fabric.


Here are the "piles" of flower pieces that I got from 4 folded pieces of fabric.

I'll use four of the flowers on the right to make my flower. (the one with the red in the fabric).







Next, I folded four of the 8 pieces in half.












Then, into quarters.

And then I tacked these together from the center.

Be sure all your folds are on the same side!

I used the Linen thread for tacking purposes.




Now comes the tricky part. You want to overlap each of the fabrics to form a circle.

I have one half of each fabric on top, the other half behind the next piece of fabric.

It's a little difficult to hold and unfurl at the same time!




Next, cut a circle out of card stock. You will use this as a base, and hot glue the fabric to it.

This is the 1-1/4" circle.









Add a dollop of hot glue.

Watch for strings! Those pesky devils always seem to be hanging around!









And, working quickly, before the glue sets, push the folded, splayed fabric into place on the CS circle.

Once you're satisfied with how it looks, add another smaller dollop of hot glue to the center of the flower and plop a pretty button in place!




And, voila! You're done.

Well, except for adding a pin back. If you want to glue it to something else, of course you don't NEED a pin back. But I like wearing mine, so I generally put one the back.



Finally, here's a photo of a die cut piece of CS (from the same die) beside the finished flower so you can see how it changes, once you've put it through this process.





I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Are you going to run to your craft closet and dig out that fabric that's been sitting there for years and make yourself some of these?

They do add a bit of dash to your outfit!

Enjoy!