Materials:
Lightweight synthetic material
Metal stud
Scissors
Pliers
Candle and matches
Pinback or hairpin (optional)

Methods:
1. Cut out circles of your material slightly larger than you want the finished size to be. I used circles of approximately 2.5, 2, and 1.5 inches in diameter, two or three of each size. Don’t worry about getting them perfect–you’re going to mess them up in the next step anyway!

2. Light your candle. For safety’s sake you should do this with water or a fire extinguisher nearby, and use tweezers to hold the fabric so you don’t burn your hand. I may have taken some of these precautions….
You’re going to use the flame’s heat to melt the edges of your fabric. This is why it needs to be a synthetic, because otherwise it’ll catch on fire instead of melting. To figure out how close you need to hold your fabric to the flame and for how long, you should experiment with some fabric scraps before flaming your flower circles. Hold your fabric circle about an inch or so over the flame until the edge curls up, and rotate it to melt the entire edge. Now you don’t have to worry about it fraying, and you’ve got a neat curled effect.

It’s not tough to figure out, but here’s a little video. (The wall in the background is actually white, not green, by the way, but the only camera I have that records video is quite old and the color is obviously off.)

Before melting:

After melting:

3. Stack up your fabric circles to make a pleasing flower. Largest in back, smallest in front.

4. Tell your flower “This won’t hurt a bit!” and stick the stud through the middle of the stack of circles. Bend down the prongs with the pliers on the backside.

Results:

Optional:

5. Now do something with your sweet little flower! Use glue to add a pinback to make a brooch, or add as embellishment for a cardigan or dress. It could also be really cute as a hairpin, headband, or belt.

Or make a set and turn them into a necklace, like I did with mine.

To make the necklace, I hand-sewed the flowers to a strip of the same blue fabric the flowers are made of, then used fabric glue to attach a piece of grosgrain ribbon to go around my neck. The ribbon is just tied in a bow in the back.

Have fun, chickadees, and show me your flowers!

Looking for more tutorials and DIY projects? Check out my What I Made page!