Monday, January 13, 2014

How-To: A Tutorial on How to Make Felt Flower Plumeria Bobby Pins

I know it's Winter, but I keep dreaming about Summer and an island vacation. Here is a tutorial on how to make a plumeria flower bobby pin out of felt!
 

Skill Level: Medium. You need to know very basic sewing.

You will need:
  
  1. scissors
  2. white felt (I prefer to use wool or wool blend, it just looks and feels nicer than polyester)
  3. two bobby pins
  4. needle
  5. thread
  6. light pink powdered blush
  7. dark or hot pink powdered blush
  8. yellow or gold powdered eyeshadow (If you are a super fancy artist, you can use your artist powdered pigments instead)
  9. a small and large eyeshadow brush
  10. hairspray
  11. industrial adhesive (I use E-6000. I love this stuff, it is really strong, you don't have to worry about your flowers falling off. Hot glue can also probably be used, but I think the flowers might fall off since it is not that strong.)
  12. Newspaper or scrap paper
These are all things you probably have just laying around the house!

Let's make a plumeria blossom!





  1.  First, cut out a piece of felt that is tear dropped shape like in the photo above. It doesn't have to be perfect. You can free hand cut the first petal, and use it as a template to cut the others. Cut out five pieces to make one flower.
 

2. I cut out ten because I was making two flowers. This is what they all should look like.


3. With your yellow or gold eyeshadow and large eyeshadow brush, brush the powder onto the bottom of the petals, the side of the petal with the smaller, flat edge. Work the pigments in with the brush. Since we are working with felt, and it has layers of interlocking fibers, the eyeshadow pigments will stay in pretty well. You can also rub it in with your finger. Do this to each petal.
4. Here is what they look like afterwards. This doesn't have to be perfect, we'll worry about blending later.
5. Now get your pink blush, and brush the right edge of the flower petals. As you do this you can blend.
6. A little blotchy but we'll fix this next.
7. Using a darker, hot pink eyeshadow, and a small eyeshadow blush, work the pigments in the right and top edges. Blend into the lighter pink and the yellow.
8. Your newly colored petals!
9. To fix the pigments in the petals better, use hairspray over your newspaper or scrap paper and spray each petal well. This also gives the petals a nice shape.
10. Thread your needle with white thread and knot the end of the thread. Fold down the left edge of the petal and sew three to four stitches to hold it down. This will give the petal more shape.

11. Sew down each petal, it should look something like the petals above.
12. Now we need to string the petals to form the flower. With the colored part of the petal face up, push the thread from the back of the petal on the bottom upwards, as shown in the photo above. Continue to add the other petals in the same way. It should form a sort of staircase.
13. Cut the thread from the needle.
14. Tie the petals together really tightly so they bundle up, with a square knot. The colored petals should be facing inside.
15. Cut the thread, and spread the petals open! Now we have the plumeria flower!

16. Cut two small circles about 1/2-3/4" in diameter from the white felt. Place these circles in the loop end of the bobby pin.
17. Get your E-6000 or hot glue and place a dot on each white felt circle, with the ridges of the bobby pin facing up. If you don't want to glue this, you can stitch the flower to the white felt.
18. Place the flower onto the glue dot and hold it down.

19. As the glue dries, push on the back white circle once in a while to make sure the flower adheres. You can also clamp the flower to the circle backing as it dries.

20. Hairspray the whole flower once again and as it dries, curl the petals back with your fingers and lay it down on a piece of paper so the curl holds. This gives the flower a prettier shape.
21. Here is the finished product!


Here is the flower in my hair.

Flower closeups:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/175566370/tropical-plumeria-flower-felt-bobby-pin
Have fun making this! I'd like to know how this turned out, so leave a picture, message, or link in the comments.

If you are too lazy to make this and just want the flower, I have them for sale in my Etsy shop:


https://www.etsy.com/listing/175566370/tropical-plumeria-flower-felt-bobby-pin?ref=shop_home_active_6

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