Mother's Day Poppies

A nice way to catch the eye when wearing a plain shirt are poppies. Instead of giving your mother a broach, try a bouquet of pretty, handmade poppies!

I'm guest blogging at Made tomorrow, Tuesday, about crafting and motherhood. To celebrate Dana of Made is featuring me and the poppy tutorial.

So here it is, back by popular demand!

If you want a fuller flower just cut out more flowers and create more layers. If you want a smaller flower just eliminate the larger flowers and make fewer layers.

You might want also want to try cutting the tips of the flower patterns in a point to make peonies.

I might even suggest some embellishments like a hanging ribbon in the back. Or create several small ones of varying size and cluster them together to line one side of a vest or the neckline of a dress.

Here are some more ideas....here, here, here, or here.
Materials:
1 yard of either Linen, Cotton or lightweight solid colored material
1-2 pin finding bars (I found mine at JoAnn fabric)
Fray Stop Spray (I found mine at Hancock fabric)
3"x3" felt
2"x2" piece of contrasting fabric for center
Thin tipped marker
iron
scissors
hot glue gun and glue
newspaper

Step 1. Print these patterns (in PDF):
Large Flower Left, Large Flower Right (for these patterns you have to print on two separate pieces of 8.5x11 paper. Cut them out and tape them together.)
Medium Large Flower
Medium Small Flower
Small and Smallest Flowers

Step 2. Iron your fabric


Step 3: Double up your fabric and trace each of the patterns so that you have two of each flower.



Step 4. Cut out the flowers.








Step 5. Spray your fabric with Fray Stop Spray on each side. I DEFINITELY recommend using a spray rather than a gel. It takes a FRACTION of the time. I bought mine at Hancock fabrics. But you can buy it online too. Surprisingly I could not find it at either JoAnn's or Michael's. You know, if you didn't have Fray Stop Spray perhaps some old fashioned hair spray might do the trick? After this step your flowers should be a little stiffer.




Step 6. Take the smallest flower and cut out each of the petals. Make each petal pointed at the bottom.




Step 7.
1. Once you have each petal cut....

2. Fold over the bottom half of the petal so that the petal cups up like a 'real' petal. I also recommend using the side that you did not trace on since a few of the marker edges can appear if you use that side up.

3. See how the fabric curves. The more you fold over the more curve you can achieve. If you wanted a look of a flower just barely opening you would make the petals almost fold inward on itself by making a very deep fold at the bottom. Experiment with this fold and see what you can achieve.

4. Hot glue the folded fabric in place. Do this for each of the petals.

5. Hot glue each of the petals together overlapping each until you use all the petals of the first smallest flower. It should look like a full circle of petals.

6. Do steps 1-6 for each flower hot gluing the next level of flowers underneath the previous level. See how it should look underneath in step 6.
Step 8. Cut a 2"x2" piece of contrasting fabric for the center of the flower.



















Step 9. Hot glue the ends together and then glue the middle together to form a 't' shape. Cut the top of the 't' off and put a dab of hot glue on it.

If this step is too confusing you could just cut a very small circle of felt and hot glue it to the center of your flower.

I preferred the method I used in step 9 because it had a puffier ball-like look.










Step 10. Turn it over and press it into the middle of your flower trying to hide all the edges underneath the middle of the ball.
















Step 11. Cut out a 3"x3" felt circle and make two slits near the top. Slide your pin through the two holes and hot glue it to the felt. Sometimes my flower droops a little when its pinned to my shirt so what you might want to do is try to either place the pin even higher on the circle or use two pins for extra support. Then take the circle and glue it to the back of your finished flower. VOILA! You're done.