Tuesday, May 24, 2011

More Fabric {Flowers}

 Day one of our paper chain activities was to make fabric flowers. My girls have been asking me to teach them for a while now, so it was fun to teach them how to do it. I recently posted a different kind of fabric flower {here} if you're interested. This isn't the best tutorial. I was trying to focus more on helping them figure it out than taking step by step pictures, but I did take a few and I'll try to explain it the best I can!

We cut 2 inch strips of fabric, folded it in half long ways, and stitched {using a long stitch. I used the longest stitch that my machine goes to. That way it's easier to bunch up the fabric} along the raw edge side leaving long "tails" of thread on either end. 

Taking one of the two threads on one end hold it tight while bunching up the fabric. Be really careful not to break the thread . . . if you do you'll have to re-stitch it and start again.
 My 9 year old wanted to make her friend a "bright pink" flower clip. She told my daughter that she's the nicest friend she's ever had today . . . made her day! I guess this is her "thank you." I didn't take pictures of the process, but once the fabric strip is bunched all the way, I started at one end and wound it around itself, hot gluing all along the way {wrap, hot glue, wrap, hot glue . . .}. Once we got it wrapped all the way around she cut out a felt circle and a clip and hot glued it to the underside. 
 Didn't it turn out super cute!?
 My 7 year old decided to also give something to her friend. She wanted to glue a flower onto a green pipe cleaner, but I ran out, so she decided it might be a cute idea to use a pencil for the stem. We just hot glued one end of the flower to the eraser side of the pencil, then wrapped around just like the first one {wrap, hot glue, wrap . . . you get the picture}
 After the whole thing was wrapped around the end of the pencil she cut a felt circle with a slit in it . . . 
 then I hot glued it to the bottom to hide all of the loose edges.
 My goofy daughter smelling her hot glue smelling flower. Fun little project . . . although I wouldn't let them hot glue. I've been burned one too many times and didn't want to deal with little burned fingers and tears. 

5 comments:

  1. Unmotivated...what??? You have been crafting away! i love the chain idea. I might need to try that myself for the summer. Love the subway art as well. I might just need that in my house. love ya!

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  2. Oh! this is awesome. I try this with my sweet little daughter as she is fond of the new & decorative things a lot. Thanks for providing the step by step process of making it a good looking flower. just a spray of fragrance on it & it smells as it is an original one.

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  3. cute project and I love the down to earth (and fun!) photographs of the little girl! :)

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  4. Love this! I love making fabric flowers! I am a new follower who found you through Stumble Upon. Glad I did! I love crafts also!

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