Flower Bouquets

A while ago, Debra and I were asked to come up with a craft that could be made by a group of women from our church to be given to local nursing home residents.  We came up with the idea for these fabric bouquets.  We felt that this sweet little bouquet would be just the project since it fit the following stipulations:  1).  the craft needed to be taught to and hopefully completed by a relatively large group of women (20-25 women) 3).  the finished product could not be breakable or easily damaged  and 4).  since we needed 34 completed products, the cost needed to be low (a couple of dollars per item at the most).

Since Debra and I work so much with fabric we were able to largely use left over material that we already had on hand.    After searching pinterest for ideas I created a prototype that looked like this:

Our Women’s Ministry Coordinator set up a fun Craft Night at the Manor House complete with lots of yummy deserts.

We had a great time teaching this craft, connecting with other women and eating! Unfortunately, we only completed about half of what we needed.  Talking and food were just too distracting!  We thought about having another craft night to finish off the rest but struggled with coordinating another night.  Consequently, they sat in a box in Debra’s basement until this past summer when they were finally dug out.  I brought them home and  got them completed while catching up on a few shows on Netflix.  Finally, a good excuse to watch lots of TV!

Basically, to make these rosettes, you just need to cut (or rip) strips of material 1/2 to one inch in diameter.  The length can vary depending upon how large you want your rosette.   I fold  the material in half lengthwise and just start rolling, twisting and gluing every turn with a low-heat glue gun.  For a great tutorial and other ideas on how to use these fabric flowers, you can visit the blog Tatertots & Jello.

For the base of these bouquets, we used biodegradable flower pots (they’re readily available in any garden center in the spring).   We chose these because we loved how natural they look (plus, they’re super cheap!).  Since the base is light weight, we did weigh it down with a small zip lock  bag filled with sand.  We then glued a styrofoam ball to the top of the pot and attached the rosettes to the ball with hot glue,  being careful to keep the roses tightly together so as not to show any of the white styrofoam underneath.

Rosettes can also be made out of old sweaters. Debra and I led two workshops this past summer which you can see here. For a tutorial on making sweater flowers, you can click here.

My six-year-old particularly liked this bouquet with pink and purple rosettes:

I think these are pretty enough to even be used for bridesmaids bouquets.

I’m happy with the final results and hope they spread a little love to our local friends at the Clover Nursing Home.

Happy Crafting!

Elizabeth