Flower week continues...

After several late nights, I managed to finish up several new projects this week, including the kanzashi flowers I plan to add to hair clips for an upcoming birthday gift. These are double color flowers made from grosgrain ribbon, with coordinating buttons. Each flower is approximately 1.5 inches wide.

Another project I completed is a fun paper flower wreath for our kitchen. I cut out three different sizes of flowers from a set of scrapbook paper I bought years ago and hot glued them to a wreath form I cut from the side of a diaper box. I also punched smaller flower shapes to hot glue to the center of each flower stack. I think it came out really nice, and I plan to make another one for our front door. And the best part is that I used materials I already had on hand.

Flowers blooming everywhere

When I started this blog, I had intended, at the very least, to post updates on a weekly basis. After all, I typically create at least one new item each week, often more, so it shouldn't be much harder to post about those creations on the blog.  But, July was a pretty rough month around here, so I'm behind a bit on both the posting and the crafting! I still have a backlog of older projects to post about, particularly all the sewing I've been doing, but I thought I'd kick off this hot summer day with a post about my recent obsession with flowers, of the fabric, ribbon and paper variety, that is! And I have ample inspiration from the zinnias, sunflowers, 4-o'clocks, and marigolds that are happily growing around my yard.

I started experimenting with fabric flowers earlier this year, when I was desperate for flowers and wanted to make Sophie a cute little flower hair clip. The first ones turned out so well, that I made a few more for other family members. These are all created by folding five 3x3 squares of fabric on the diagonal, and basting along the open edges of triangle to form the five petals. The petals are then sewn together in a circle, and a button of some sort is sewn in the middle to finish the flower look - I use a button covered in a coordinating fabric.

 

A different type of flower can be sewn by folding a long strip of fabric in half, basting along the raw edge, and then cinching up the strip. I found myself putting these flowers on everything from skirts to bags to cards!




 This week, I'm experimenting with two new forms. The first is is a ruched flower, which is created by basting the long, folded strip of fabric along a zig zag - I used a ribbon for this flower, which I attached to the bottom of a fabric-covered frame I'm making for grandmother's birthday (shhh!).




The second style I'm experimenting with is tsumami kanzashi, a japanese fabric folding technique that the geisha used to created hair ornaments, among other things. I don't have a picture yet, but I'm creating several cute little hair clips for an upcoming birthday present for one of Henry's friends. I'll try to post pictures later this week! In the meantime, if you want to try it out for yourself, check out this easy tutorial: http://gabriellepollacco.blogspot.com/2009/11/kanzashi-bloom-tutorial-fun-handmade.html