Weddingbee Blog

Today I Googled “fabric flowers” just for fun and found this little gem:

Source

It’s called a “Kanzashi”. It is a Japanese hair ornament that dates back over 200 years! And, it is GAAAHHWWWWgeous!

Since I’m feeling uber-crafty tonight, I found this tutorial and decided to give it a go! So here are my pics that I took. I tried to snap a shot of each step, but forgive me if it’s unclear…

The first thing I did was cut a 3″ square out of cardstock to use as the template for my fabric squares (aka “petals”). I used 2 different colored fabrics and made 6 petals for each flower.

Once you have 6 squares, take the first one and fold it in half diagonally

Then take the 2 corners from the long side of the isosceles triangle (hello, high school geometry!) and fold them into the other corner

Still with me? Great! Now, see that gap running down the middle? You’re going to fold along that gap, away from you, to create this

Now secure it with a pin and push the top down so you can see what the petal looks like!

Repeat these steps with all 6 pieces of fabric.

Next up, thread a needle and insert the needle and thread into the petal, through all of the folds, near just below the pin. Remove the pin.

Now cut the corner off just below the needle.

Thread it through all the way and repeat with the rest of the petals.

Once they’re all threaded, pull tight and tie it off to the knot before the first petal.

You’re almost finished! Now you can decorate the flower however you want! I chose to hot glue buttons to the front of mine and a safety pin to the back.

My suggestions for making a successful Kanzashi:

1. Don’t worry about making the fabric squares perfect. The folds and sewing will hide any flaws in the shape.
2. To help the flower keep its shape, I found that hot gluing between the petals on the back of the flower really helped.
3. Also, adding a circular piece of fabric, smaller than the diameter of the flower, to the back helps add some stability.

Now, I’m not using these to replace real flowers. But I’ve got a couple cute projects in mind, like hair pieces for my bridesmaids, and incorporating them into the gifts! These little buggers have limitless possibilities!

I hope you like my first-ever tutorial!

Have you undertaken any crafts that seemed super hard but ended up being pretty easy???