Satin flower tutorial

A while back I found some scraps of satin fabric in white, baby pink and burgundy at Wal-Mart for dirt cheap…I’m talking 13 cents for each scrap…so I bought them.
I kept my new little purchase in the back of my mind for a while, thinking up something I could do with them.
Then one day my little light bulb turned on signaling the start of my new project.
I recreated it in tutorial form to share with you.


The satin flower I concocted would make the perfect gift for your Mother on Mother’s day… A corsage that won’t wilt and die on her. Instead of trashing it, she would be able to wear it again and again! Or if you love it enough, just make it for yourself.
It’s worth it considering you only need to carve out 45 –60 min. from start to finish.

Remember, my times are recorded without using any instructions. So make sure you read through every step before you begin…then our times will match up more accurately. 

Okay, let’s get started.

You need:
one burning candle
hot glue gun and sticks
1/8 yard satin (1/4 yard will yield two flowers)
small piece of felt
green fabric (if you include the leaves)
one brooch pin

Take your satin scraps and cut into squares, then round the edges to make circles (I cut two layers of satin at a time)…
don’t try to get them perfect, you will just waste your time.
Plus, your flower will look better if your circles are all different.
I cut around 4 circles approximately 4 inches in diameter,
3-4 circles approximately3 inches in diameter,
3 circles approximately 2 inches in diameter,
3 circles approximately 1.5 inches in diameter,
and 1 circle approximately 1 inch in diameter.
If you would like your flower a little fuller, just add one or two more of each size.

then you will have a bunch of these…
look closely, some of my circles aren’t even close to being deemed a real “circle” considering they have some straight edges…they are all going to change shape and size while you burn them so don’t be concerned with perfection…I wasn’t.
Cutting the circles takes about 8 –10 minutes.

Then comes the fun part…burning.
No, I’m not a pyromaniac, it’s just fun to watch the edges curl up and fibers melt.

Once the edges are done it will look something like this…

Then I just lay the fabric close to the heat…NOT the flame…and let small portions of the middle melt slightly.

You might end up with something like this if you get too close or leave it in the heat for too long…but that’s okay.
I used this particular petal in the flower anyway.

After you are done burning all your circles, you will have something that looks a little more like the makings of a flower…
The burning process takes about 12-15 minutes.

Now, you are going to start layering your circles (petals) to create your flower. Position yourself right next to your hot glue gun…she will be your friend for this next part. Just remember to only use tiny bits of glue…you don’t want to make a globby, stringy mess of a flower!

Now I usually make little piles of each size of petal to help me see and grab them more quickly. Start with your largest petals. You don’t want all your petals to lay directly on top of one another so dab a small amount of glue in on your first petal and off-set the next just a little…like this:

Continue the process. Pressing each layer together where you placed your glue.

You will start to have something that looks more like this. If you don’t like a the way a certain petal looks, just pull it back slightly, place a little dab of glue underneath it and then scrunch it up a little and press.
You can see in this picture that I did that with the top petal that was laying to flat initially. I put a dab of glue in the center, one to the right (scrunched and glued) and then to the left (scrunched and glued).

Now, don’t hate me, but I forgot to take a picture of the step that makes the center of the flower. I will just have to explain…so stay with me here.
You want to take your smallest petal and place a dab of glue in the center (of the shiny satin side) and then pinch it together.
It will look a little like a upside down tee-pee.
Sorry, best image I could think of.
Then, put a dab of glue in the center of your layered petals. Plop that smallest petal in there, shiny side up.
If you don’t like the way it looks, just place tiny dabs of glue between the petals and go back to the ‘scrunch and press’ to alter it to your liking.

When you are done it will look something like this…
Gluing your flower together takes approximately 14-15 minutes.

Now you have two options… A. finish it up here with the felt and pin or B. move on to the leaves before you felt and pin it.

I’m going to pretend you chose option B and go on to the leaves.
I grabbed an old sweater from my scraps pile and cut two rectangles about 6 inches long and 1.5 inches wide.
I folded them in half length wise and then cut the fold. We are just trying to double up the material. Now you should have 2 doubled rectangles measuring approximately 3 inches long and 1.5 inches wide.
Then with each doubled piece cut out a leaf shape. Again, don’t aim for perfection here. I’m not even giving you a pattern or anything because I really think it all works out more beautiful if you do it without.
You will need your sewing machine for this next part. If you don’t have one, hand stitching would work just as well. It would obviously alter the timing of the project. Run it through your machine outlining your leaf shape and then run one vine up the center. IMPORTANT: When you do this, don’t backstitch at the bottom of your leaf! It should end up looking a little like this…
Now here is the reason for the NOT backstitching. You are going to find the string from the center vine that you can pull. One of them you can’t pull and one, you can. Once you’ve found your lucky string, pull slightly and you will find a little surprise awaiting you…
fun…right?!?
Creating your leaves should take approximately 6-8 minutes (that doesn’t include threading the machine or the chance of some machine troubles).

Now, take a small scrap of felt and cut a square that is a little smaller than your flower. My square was 2.5x2.5 inches.

round off your corners to create a circle just smaller than your flower.

This is what mine looked like next to my flower…

and a comparison in size to the back of my flower.

Next I glued my curled leaves to the back of my flower and glued the felt circle over the top to cover them up.
And your final step is to glue your pin to the top center portion of your felt. It should now look something like this from the back:

and from the front…

Finishing off your flower with leaves, felt and pin will only take approximately 5-7 minutes.

So from the time your scissors touch your satin to the time you glue your pin on the back of your flower you’ve used between 45-60 minutes.
You can do THAT! 

Now go give it a shot and in a short amount of time you will feel good about accomplishing something AND you will have your Mother’s Day gift taken care of! YES!

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway…it will end Friday at midnight.
REMEMBER:  EVERYONE is allowed TWO ENTRIES…one comment saying your a follower (public or private) and the other comment you can just say hi! I LOVE hearing from you...
Let’s see how many comments we can submit to Random.org on Friday night!

Oh, and just to let you in on what’s to come…
I have TWO of these flowers ready for our next giveaway!
Yep…get ready…we will have TWO winners!
That giveaway will start when we have 60 public followers! YEAH!