Friday Finds – Fabric Flowers

We enjoyed sharing our flower making tools and projects with you all during April. Today we’re wrapping it all up with a few of the newest flower finds that found us swooning.

• Wearable Flower Wreath Tutorial by Emily
• Mother’s Day Pom-Pom Bouquet Tutorial by Mom Advice
• Fuzzy Flowers by Fiona
• Review of Clover Protect and Grip Thimbles by Everything is not Black & White

Hand stitching is easier with a good thimble, so we included a recent review for you.  Here’s the link to all Clover Thimbles if you’re in the market for a new one. There’s still time to enter our May Flowers Giveaway and share it with your friends. Good luck!

April Showers Bring May Flowers Giveaway

All month long we’ve shared projects featuring our flower making tools. Now we’d like to share a few of those tools with one lucky reader. You increase your chances of winning by following all the entry options in the prize entry box you can find by clicking on the words May Flower Giveaway below. The prize package is valued at over $60 MSRP and includes:

• Yo Yo Makers in Large and XL
• Kanzashi Flower Maker in XS and Large
• Flower Frill in Mini, XS, Large, and XL
• Hana Ami Flower Loom
• Black and Gold Needles
• Adjustable Ring Thimble

May Flowers Giveaway

Best of luck. We hope you’re a winner!

Make It Monday – Flower Wreath

Spring is a wonderful time to decorate with a new wreath. We wrapped a styrofoam wreath with burlap, and then created a garden of fabric flower embellishements using the extra small Kanzashi Flower Makers. The centers of the flowers are a mix of buttons, seed beads, and rolled twine. You can see more particulars of the design with matching candle holder and frame on this link to the project inspiration sheet. We hope you’re inspired to create a new wreath for your spring decorating.

Watch Us Wednesday – Pom-Pom Hair Ties

We love the way Maggie from Smashed Peas and Carrots created these adorable hair ties using our Small Pom-Pom Maker. We especially like how she tied the hair elastic into the pom-pom before she removed it from the tool.  She’s so clever! We hope you’re as inspired by her creativity as we are.

Make It Monday – Pom Pom Hydrangeas

Have you tried making pom-poms with fabric?  It gives the pom-pom a whole new look, perfect for a spring bouquet.  It’s easy to do if you use a rotary cutter to cut the fabric, and is a wonderful way to use scraps from quilting and sewing projects.  Here’s the link to all the directions for the flowers shown on the left.  The little trick to get the fluffy look is giving the pom-poms a trim at the end with pinking shears.  It’s the little touches that make all the difference.  Just imagine how these would look in other fabrics such as denim, burlap, or even knit fabric.  How would you make your pom pom flowers?

We’re putting together a flower making prize package this week to help someone make beautiful May flowers.  Any requests on tools we should include?

Earth Day Finds

Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle is the perfect way to honor the planet, and minimize our footprint.  For those of us who craft and create, it’s a way of life.  We’re always setting aside little found treasures to add into our next projects.  You know you’re a true crafter when family and friends also squirrel away little treasures they think you might be able to use in your creations. Earth Day is a great time to share our thrifty ways. We’d love to hear about your found treasures and how you use them.

Here’s a few things we found this week to kick start your Earth Day projects:

• Reduce your footprint by knitting with bamboo needles, a sustainable resource like Andrej Suskavcevic, President of CHA demonstrates here. We love how crafty brave he is on video!
• Reuse an old sweater by turning it into a hat like Le Funky Mama’s did here (video is in Italian, but is so easy to follow)
• Recycle wool scraps from an accidentally shrunk sweater by needle felting into a custom phone case like Karin did here.  If you don’t have an accidentally shrunk sweater, you can wash and dry a too small or moth hole ridden sweater to magically repurpose it into felted wool.

We hope these ideas inspire new projects for you this Earth Day weekend.  How are you celebrating?