Buy or Sell New & Preowned Wedding Items

This project was sent to us  by a very crafty DIY bride and we just the way her fabric flowers turned out. Read below to learn how to make them yourself!

• Martha Stewart has a pattern for fabric flowers (click here to download it) – I used the garden rose and whole peony various petal sizes.
• There are 3 sizes for both I used the middle sized for all of my flowers. But depending on the size of the bouquet wanted you could us larger.
• Fabric – I used 5 different fabrics for each flower you could use 6 or 7– I would suggest at least one stiffer fabric such as cotton otherwise the flower will look droopy. Also, watch and make sure the fabric doesn’t fray too much when it is cut.
• Cutting them out – I cut a long stick of fabric and folded it multiple times making sure that the pattern will still fit. Then I stapled the pattern and the fabric together to help hold it in place. I stapled every other petal. Then cut them out with a nice sharp scissor.
• Putting it together – After you have each fabric cut out for the flower you will want to lay one piece over the over staggering the petal placement. Be sure to make the flowers are centered.
• Fold the flowers in half and take one edge of the half circle and fold it about 1/3 of the way toward the other edge. You will want to sew the open edge. I just put 2 tacks in the flowers I didn’t sew. One flower done many more to go.
• For the bridesmaids bouquets I made 15 flowers each.
• The brides bouquet was 25 flowers total. You can mix and match the flower types

For the stems – I used silver 22 gauge wire. These are available at Michaels. I chose a thicker wire for the bouquets and thinner wire for the bouts’. With a seam ripper, poke a hole through the bottom of the flower and then pass a wire through. Fold the wire in half, the flower should be in the middle of the piece of wire.

With an electrical drill with a hook on the end – (you can get a hook that turns into the wall and have the hardware store cut off the end) loop the bent end of the wire onto the hook. Hold onto the open ends of the wire with a pliers (try to use one that locks shut) and then use the drill to spin the wire. You will find a tightness for the wire that works for you. Be sure not to spin the wire too tight otherwise it will break.

Filler – To fill in the bouquets and bouts I used stems with beads on the end. You can use whatever beads you want or as many as you want for each stem. I think that I made 40 stems with three small beads per stem.

For the bouts – you need one flower and 3-5 bead strands. I used a small amount of wire to hold them together. I made a loop at the end with the wire and covered it with ribbon. I sewed closable pins to the ribbon so we didn’t have to worry about loose pins. You can find them at most craft stores.

To finish them- Arrange the flowers and fillers the way you want. You can use small zip ties or thin wire to help hold them in place

To bind them –Cut the wire ends so they are about equal in length and still long enough to bend the ends up over the zip tie towards the flowers. This will give a nice round end. After you bend the wire up toward the top of the bouquet, you can then zip tie those down as well. You can use ribbon to cover the wire as shown in the pictures.

Cost- Overall I think I spent $200 on all the supplies. I made 4 bouquets and 30 bouts. It took a long time, however there was a lot of trial and error so I included all of the ideas that made it much quicker by the end.

I kept some of the pieces and the bridesmaids kept theirs as a memento. If you wanted to, you could sell them if you had all the pieces.

Reactions – People thought that they were unique and beautiful.