diy: fabric flowers

last year i decided that it would be a FABULOUS idea (read thoughtful & simple) to have the dude help me make something for his teacher for christmas. he is always interested in making anything. he loves to color. loves to draw. loves to help cook dinner & bake.

i settled on button flowers. he helped. then he got bored. quickly. but his teacher loved them & so i made up my mind that at least for christmas, we would hand make all future teacher's gifts.

i should have known where our day of teacher gift crafting would end yesterday. because it worked the same way last year. with me finishing up the last 3/4 of the gift.

oh well. he's 6. i'm lucky he has the attention span to make it through the first 1/4 right? 

so here ya have it. idea from an old family fun magazine article i have in my stash.

fabric flowers:

-fabric (please. do not judge our fabric selection. my 6 year old picked it out! :)

-green pipe cleaners

-rubber bands (not pictured)

-scissors

-ruler/measuring tape

1. first make sure you trim off any raw edges.

2. measure off 3" squares. i bought 1/4 yard. in retrospect i would have bought 9". i'd have saved myself trimming off that little bit. i measured & marked the first row & then just eyeballed the remaining rows. the way these work you can't tell if they aren't perfect.

you should have some pretty good sized stacks of fabric once you finish. (you definitely don't need this many. we were making flowers for my grandmother as well.)

3. separate out your squares into stacks of 4. i ended up with about 9 or 10 flowers per 1/4 yard of fabric.

4. take a stack of 4 squares. lay them face up in front of you. the edges don't have to match exactly, but if one square is bigger than another, place that one at the bottom of the pile.

5. flip the stack over & fold the top down into about a 1/2" fold. (this is where you would have pictures of grubby little 6 year old hands, but by this time he pooped out on me. so instead you have my bottle-washing dry-as-the-desert hands instead!)

6. fold it back on itself again.

7. fold back again. i ended up with 3 folds.

it should look like this from the side. you want to make sure your ends are facing down, however many times you fold, or the flower won't look right when you go to 'poof' it out.

8. next you want to place a rubber band around the center of the flower, cinching it a bit. (i didn't plan it, but my dollar store rubber bands happened to have the same color scheme as my flowers.)

9. place your fabric flower over top of a pipe cleaner, centering it over the rubber banded portion, giving yourself enough room to fold the pipe cleaner down over the top. this is your stem.

10. fold the pipe cleaner down & twist it around itself to secure it.

11. start 'poofing' your flower. pull the layers of fabric apart.

12. repeat on the other side of the flower.

13. repeat until you have the desired amount of flowers. place in vessel & your done!

i seem to give gifts FROM mason IN mason jars. is that weird? my mom says at least they will always remember who it was from. i'm thinking i should start investing in buying them in bulk! 

hope you enjoy!

xo-k

ps- what are you giving your child's teacher this year?