pretty poppies tutorial

What do these things have in common?
roll-ups (crayon, marker, gel pen, make-up brushes)
felt food
play mail set
soda can jewelry

. . . and now flowers

Give up? 

These are all the craft-related obsessions I have had in the past seven months.  My sixth craft till Christmas in July was haircessories.  With that craft, my flower obsession began.  Recently, I googled "images of flowers" just to gaze at the source of this recent crafty-obsession, and these three images jumped off the computer screen.   

The first one and the third one are a poppies, but I'm not sure what the second one is.  Let's pretend it's a poppy too.  Either way these three beautiful flowers are the inspiration behind my newest flower project - super easy pretty poppy wall art.

Pretty Poppies

Here's what you need:
-a square art canvas (Find at Hobby Lobby, Michael's, Wal-mart, etc.)
-fabric (I went with a monochromatic look with various shades of ivory, off white and white.  I also used various textures, thicknesses, etc. - linen, tulle, twill, muslin, etc.) 
-beads
-straight pins

Here's what you do:
1)  Using four different sized circle items as a pattern cut 9 circles of each size from four different fabrics.  I used four different sized biscuit cutters at the patterns.  Cut 27 circles of tulle from the largest circle pattern. (Obviously, the number of circles you use will depend on the size of your canvas and the spacing you want.  My canvas was 10 x 10.)

2)  Ball up each circle into a little wad.  (Yuck, I hate using the word "wad".)  I stuffed my little wadded up balls into the corner of sandwich baggies and twisted the baggies up.  Then my kids woke up from their naps so we played while my little wadded up balls got nice and wrinkly.  If you need the instant gratification of wrinkles, I have two recommendations: 1) After pre-washing your fabric, dry it.  By the time you get back to it - if you are like me - it will be good and wrinkly after sitting in the dryer for a day or two.  2) After rolling your circles into little balls, place a hot iron on them. 

3)  Take wadded up balls out of baggies.  Layer circles - largest, tulle, medium, tulle, medium in a different fabric, tulle, smallest.

4)  Take straight pin and bead and put pin through the bead.  Stick pin and bead combo through the center of each poppy.

5)  Turn canvas over.  Use the cutting edge of a pliers to snip off the sharp ends of the pins.  Then use the needle nose end of the pliers to bend the blunt pin end down.

6)  Done!  Now I just have to figure out where to put it!

Craft on!

My no-sew headband ended up being number two in the first round of Trendy Crafter.  That means I'm in the next round as well . . . which is, yep, you guessed it . . . flowers.  I'll let you know when voting begins in round 2 so that you can head on over and vote for your fav.