Fourth of July Fabric Corsage Tutorial

Happy Fourth of July!!! To celebrate today's holiday I whipped up this sweet little holiday corsage yesterday. It's red, white and blue at it's best. With a little imagination and fabric you can easily adapt this tutorial to any holiday or special occasion. I think this would be a lovely finishing touch to your outfit when worn to a wedding or garden party. The design is meant to be reminiscent of the ol' time corsages worn high on the shoulder but because of the versatile pin back/clip combo it can also be worn as a hair accessory or you can clip it to a long necklace for a focal accent. However you choose to wear it- Enjoy!
------------------------------------------------------------------

Fourth of July Fabric Corsage Tutorial

Tools and Materials
Scissor
Needle
Embroidery floss or thread
Variety of coordinating fabrics (I used Moda)
Canvas cloth
Bit of ribbon or other trims if desired 
Glue gun with glue stick
Pin back/clip combo (found it at Hobby Lobby) 

Step One: Rip or cut a strip of fabric approx. 2' in length by 2 1/2" in width. 

Step Two:  Fold the strip in half width-wise, hold and tie a knot an inch or so from one end of the strip 

Step Three: Thread your needle and pierce your knot in the center then begin to wrap the strip around the center knot, adding a stitch here or there as you go to hold the shape. 

Step Four: Give the fabric a twist here or there before adding a stitch to create the form and appearance of petals.







Step Five: When finished, add a few more stitches to the base of the flower to secure. Then add a couple of stitches up and through the center. Knot off at back and cut thread. 

Step Six: Choose a couple of coordinating fabric and cut 2-3 leaf shapes. Place on canvas and leaving a 1/4" border cut around your patterned fabric. Rip a few more strips to hang down decoratively from corsage as well.

Step Seven: Play around with your positioning and then stitch leaves to back of fabric flower as desired. Feel free to embellish your leaves by stitching around their edge or adding some buttons or beads. To add dimension to the leaf, pinch bottom and stitch to hold as shown. 

Step Eight: When you've finished assembling your corsage and stitching it all securely in place heat up your glue gun and adhere pin back to back of flower. Hold for a few seconds for better bond.  Alternatively, you could stitch on a pin  back. Make sure to position slightly high on back of corsage so it hangs well.  
Wear with patriotic pride (and 'cause you know you look good). :)

Best Wishes to you and your family- I hope you have a fabulous Fourth of July!!!!!

Handmade Embellishments 101: Creating Your Own Stamped Cork Stickers

I'm a little partial to the warm natural tone and texture of cork and enjoyed having the opportunity to play around a bit with it when creating the Inspiration Board in my book, Creative Bloom. So as not to waste a whole corkboard with my experimentation I purchased a roll of cork contact paper. What I learned was that painting directly on cork with acrylic worked great but so did stamping. However if I completely covered the cork with paint I lost the warm cork color I liked so much. I ended up keeping the cork background visible by cutting my own stamp and stamping with acrylics while also creating some little accent stickers out of the cork contact paper. Cork on cork is pretty cute but cork in the shapes of butterflies was SUPER cute. Now, a couple of years after my initial experimentation I'm starting to see cork embellishments come out in the scrapbooking stores so I thought I'd show you how really really easy (and inexpensive) these are to make at home.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Creating Your Own Super Easy Cork Embellishments

Tools and Materials
One roll of cork contact paper (I got mine at Target)*
Scissors or punches
Stamps
Ink (dye pigment or permanent)

Step One: Choose some stamps and stamp directly on your cork surface. If you're using a detailed stamp (such as a photo realistic stamp) you'll want to make sure you really ink up the surface of the stamp. Then press the stamp firmly into the cork. Work on a hard surface for the best impression. If you plan on using a punch to cut out your stamp you might want to make sure you're working right at the edge of your cork as many punches won't allow you to reach very far.

Step Two: Cut around the stamp either with a punch or a scissor. Using a sharp scissor will give you the crispest edge, cork can be difficult to cut with a dull scissor. It just wants to bend. If punching you might want to insert the image upside down with the punch flipped over so that you can position it perfectly.

Step Three: Store your stickers flat as cork does want to break if rolled or folded. To use, simply peel off the backing paper and adhere to your surface. Easy as Pie. :) For the embellishment at right I did add a little twisted wire to the cork image with just a couple of stitches (more detail on this in my book, Creative Bloom). Enjoy!!!!

Detail of Inspiration Board in Creative Bloom

Variations: You can also make some freeform stickers but painting directly on the cork contact paper (like I did with my polka dots), or you can try drawing your own little images directly on the cork with a permanent marker as well. A doodled little robot might be awfully adorable. :)

* You can buy cork on a roll at craft or hobby stores but it usually does not have the adhesive backing. I did find that cork sticks just fine if using a UHU glue stick (apply for complete coverage) or tacky glue.