DIY: from expensive to cheap!

Today my friend Valeria tweeted (yep, I just referenced a tweet in my blog) about this company Emersonmade that makes "gorgeous and lovely" (as Valeria put it) fabric flowers. They are incredibly beautiful... but unfortunately also incredibly expensive. So I decided to take a crack at creating the beauty pictured above on my own.

I had an old yellow scarf that I made last year from a scrap of fabric that I rarely wear so I decided that it could be sacrificed to make some flowers. I googled "how to make fabric flowers" and got some instructions from some great blogs and websites online. I tried my hand at 5 different kinds. Some turned out pretty cool... others did not. See for yourself.

1. Here is a rose from Martha Stewart's website. Here's the link.

2. This one was probably my favorite: it's a peony from Martha Stewart's website. The same link as above.

3. This rose turned out ok: it's borderline cheesy which I don't love, but oh well. Here is the link.

4. This little guy was kind of random but it looked easy so I thought I'd try it out. Here is the link.

5. This poppy was my last, and probably least successful attempt. Emersonmade has some really cool poppies so I really wanted to make one. These directions called for a glue gun, which I used, but the little glue strings and hot glue (I burnt myself HARDCORE) weren't much fun. I'm hoping to give it another shot some other time. Here is the link.

Now that I know how to make these flowers... I'm not really sure what I am going to do with this knowledge. Part of me wants to buy some nicer fabric and try to make more... but the other part of me wonders what I'll do with them once I've made them. They aren't really my style... but maybe I'll make them my style. We'll see... All I know is that I enjoyed the challenge of making them!