A Super Stash Jolt plus some busting with flowers...

My sweet mother-in-law recently gave me an entire box with all kind of cool stash stuff! How lucky am I?

Besides exploring all the cool stuff, I've been having fun making some fabric flowers from some new to me fabric stash.  I experimented with a couple different ways and found this way to be the easiest and least likely to catch fire...oh and I think they are pretty.

I think this works on any fabric you shouldn't iron due to melting (some with better shapes then others). It is a great way to use up some scraps from past prom and wedding dresses. Now I'm deciding what to do with finished flowers...but that might be another post, anyone want one?  With no girls to decorate my practical uses for them are limited. Anyway....

OK So I put the end result first in my little quadrant so you won't be able to wait to try these. 

1. Supplies: 

- A heat gun (used normally for heat embossing, has more heat and less air then a blow dryer, if you don't have one of these, either experiment with a lighter and fire extinguisher or quit reading now)

- Craft glue (I like Aleene's tacky - it's thick and dries fairly quick, but I'm sure school glue will work too) 

- Tweezers (handy to add the beads, but also you need something to hold the fabric as you blast it with heat so you don't burn you fingers, a stick or pencil would work too), 

- Fabric (not pictured) 

- Embellishments like beads, buttons or nothing.

2. Cut out 5+ circles in varying sizes, plan for some shrinkage to occur.  Arrange with the largest on the bottom and stack them until the smallest is on the top.  Put a dab of craft glue in the middle of the circle, between each layer. The more layers you add, the more ruffly the flower.

3. When the glue is dry, hold the center of the circle stack down with tweezers or pencil, turn on the heat gun and aim for the edges of the flower, the fabric will begin to curl.  Shoot the heat from the side to get more volume and directly from the top to curl the top layers.

4. Add embellishments to the middle of the flower a corsage pin, barrette or headband to the back.  If some are too curly or very small or weird throw them out for heavens sake.  I did find some of the weird ones looked pretty good after all clustered in a group, glued on a card.

Oh and if you want to try this, I claim no responsibility for toxic fumes, but mine hardly tainted the air (as far as I know).  If you do make some - I'd love to see, and see what you did with them whatarewedoingtodaymom@gmail.com