2012 February 24 — Domestic Imperfection

A couple weeks ago I made some gifts for a friends daughter. It was her second birthday and I decided to jazz up some accessories with fabric roses.

Try as I may, I just can’t bring myself to do crafty things and not take pictures, so I’m here to share a tutorial with y’all.

I had first attempted these when I made my guest bedroom frame wall…

I looked up a few tutorials online, but none of them worked out quite the way I hoped they would. So I scraped the tutorials and just went with it. Here is the method I came up with. It’s super simple…in fact, you can probably stop reading right now if you just remember these three words – Wrap, twist, glue… repeat. Okay, so four words.

If your the type that likes specific directions though, then your gonna love this…

1. Cut out a scrap piece of fabric. Size doesn’t really matter, but for reference this one is about two inches wide and two feet long.

2. Fold in half, mainly just the first six inches or so.

3. Trim it down to make the first few inches narrower, like so….

4. Roll it up and glue into place. I used hot glue this time, last time I used needle and thread. Hot glue is WAY easier, as you might imagine. Also fabric glue takes way to long to dry, I tried that and it didn’t work.

5. When you get to the end of your trimmed part, twist it once and keep wrapping.

6. Keep wrapping and twisting, gluing as you go. Please DO NOT over think this, whatever way you do it will turn out pretty darn good. It doesn’t really matter how much you twist, or if it’s folded in half, or not, or a little or both. Just go with it.

7. When you come to the end of your fabric, glue the end underneath the rose. Done. You should probably not be like me and pick off any hot glue that is showing. I was in a bit of a hurry because I procrastinated making these until about an hour before we had to leave for the party. Taking pictures along the way slowed me down a bit too, but I still had to do it!

The ric rac roses are seriously easy too, this is the first time I’ve made them. Here is what I did…
1. Take your ric rac and cut two pieces that are equal in length. Then wrap them around each other and sew them together. (I’m sure gluing would work as well).

Here is an example of what I mean – the one on the left I just placed together like a puzzle and sewed, and the one on the right is wrapped – kinda or like braiding with two pieces. I made successful roses out of both, but I liked the wrapped on better.