More DIY Projects

Ok it’s official, I have an addiction to Hobby Lobby. Luckily it takes a good 45 minutes for me to get there so I can’t just pop in whenever I feel like it. I explored some uncharted craft aisles this past weekend and found some truly awesome stuff. I’d love to share all the projects but I have to leave some surprises for the wedding day! Be assured, come October 15th, I’ll be happy to share the details of all the projects. My current project is the invitations which have become slightly tedious and frustrating in many ways. To spare you the pain, let me tell you a little about vellum. It curls and ink does not dry on it. Literally, I stamped designs on my vellum invites on Friday (4 days ago) and it STILL isn’t dry. To combat the curling issue, it is suggested to stick the sheets under a heavy book. Well, in order to do that my ink needs to dry! I am nervous to blow dry as I fear that may only enhance the curling issue. Luckily I still have a few weeks before they need to mailed out and common sense would figure that at some point, when exposed to air, the ink HAS to dry. Right? Here is a little sneak peak of the invites, well the envelopes anyway:

You may have read my previous post about Fabric Flowers. If you didn’t you should because they are awesome! Anyway after making them I determined that it would be fun and necessary to make some for my bridesmaids. Because of course they would be majorly jealous of mine if they didn’t have one of their own! And because I thought they would kind of tie us all together in a cute, DIY way only fabric flowers can do. The plan was to make red ones but I struggled to find red fabric that I liked and that I thought would mesh well with both their outfits and the rest of the decor. So I mixed black chiffon and satin with a reddish black organza.

I was SO excited when I finished them because they are SO tedious and for some reason these were particularly dangerous. I burned my fingers too many times to count which is odd because I don’t think I burned my fingers once when I made my own. In addition the fabric seemed extra flammable which caused its own set of problems. Anyway, I finished 3 fantastic flowers and was about to relax when I realized I have in fact, 4 bridesmaids. Awesome.

On an unrelated note, I won some amazing Hank and Hunt garlands from the fabulous Lollipop Events blog. They fit in super perfectly with the whole DIY vibe I am going for and I can’t wait to incorporate them (or see how Kim incorporates them) into the decor. They came adorably wrapped in little squares of fabric. I had been wanting to create a more rustic looking fabric flower and this seemed like the perfect fabric to use. I also found a pattern for another fabric flower that involved no fire, which was the perfect combo for my burnt fingers. I decided to try it out. I loosely based my design off the pattern which was perfect because it was A LOT less structured than the other flowers and involved way fewer steps. So here it is:

I used the squares from the garland packaging and some burlap I had laying around. You know how I LOVE burlap!

I cut the fabric into strips and then rounded the edges. No pattern here, just free hand. Try to keep the strips about the same length and width but perfection is not necessary.

Basically I didn’t take any pictures between the first two steps and the finished product, sorry,  but you can follow the actual pattern for what to do next. Basically pinch the fabric in the middle and layer 5 or so strips in an alternating pattern, so it looks like a flower. Wrap them in the center with floral wire tightly and then do the same thing to the next layer. Continue doing this until you have a full flower, 4 layers or so. I did not have floral wire so I stuck by my old standby, needle and thread. I think wire would have made it look more like the picture so try it out if you have it. I also altered the middle by cutting some of the original strips in half and bunching those up so it looked sort of like a rose center. Unfortunately, I am not a great photographer either so the picture doesn’t do it justice but I think it turned out pretty fantastic. If you are thinking about trying a fabric flower project and you aren’t super crafty, or patient, I recommend this one over the other ones I did. This one was WAY faster and has a more relaxed vibe. There were a few wonky pieces on this one and I just trimmed them a bit, something I couldn’t do with the other variety. Cost: FREE! Yep, thanks to the ability to re-use bits of wrapping from the garland and burlap I had on hand, this cost me nothing. Get creative with things around the house, random bits of leftover fabric would be great for this!