Thursday, May 16, 2013

May BBA Flowers Challenge

Some of you may remember this bunny family idea that I shared earlier this spring. While I still think that it is insanely cute, it doesn't really fit with anything else in our home. I'm not sure how I decided on flowers instead. I still had a bunch of felt and paper flowers left over from last year (more on those flowers over here), which meant that this project came together really easily. And it just so happened to fit the May challenge theme.


The biggest challenge was figuring out what kind of fabric I wanted. It's very rare that I use fabric for crafting. I intentionally don't keep much of it on hand because I simply don't need to spend the time and money building a stash of material that I will hardly ever use. This meant that I had to purchase something. I eventually settled on burlap.



Materials
  •  A set of embroidery hoops. I picked up a set of five in two different sizes on Etsy. I paid less than half of the retail value. If you scout a lot of thrift stores, you may be able to score a set for even less.
  • Felt rectangles and buttons of your choosing for flowers and leaves in the colors. Michaels has felt rectangles for less than 30 cents each. It is time consuming to make, cut, and glue these flowers and leaves, but they are very inexpensive to make. Again, you can read more about them here.
  • Fabric of your choosing for the hoop backings. I bought half a yard of burlap and used about half of it.
  • Tacky glue (for the flowers)
  • Nails (for hanging the hoops)

Even if you bought everything new for this project, you most likely wouldn't spend more than $30. I know that many people already have a lot of the materials on hand.


The assembly process is pretty self-explanatory. It's important to take your time stretching and cutting the fabric so you end up with evenly stretched fabric and closely cut ends. I used more tacky glue to attach the flowers to the burlap. As you will not be handling these pieces, it is not necessary to use a really strong glue like E-6000 or an epoxy.


I completely winged the hanging job and did readjust a few of the hoops in the process to get a look that I liked. I know that many people will do something much more sophisticated to get a certain aesthetic, but that's pretty much exactly how the hanging process goes around here.


I'm really happy with my little flower hoops. I've been slowly filling out one of the wall spaces in my office area of the basement, and this set is a great final touch.

One of the best aspects of this project is that there are so many ways that you can customize it. With different fabrics and colors, you could easily create a completely different aesthetic. There is no reason to feel limited to flowers either. After all, my original inspiration was the bunnies.

I used this project for the May 2013 Blogging Business Artisans Flowers Challenge. If you enjoy these types of challenges, love blogging, and are looking for a new team on Etsy, consider joining us.

Have you been working on any new home decor?

15 comments:

  1. These turned out so great! The burlap really lets the flowers shine! What fun colorful decor.

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  2. I've seen other folks use embroidery hoops as instant frames and I think it's very clever - I suppose one could also paint them to enhance whatever is being framed...crafters are such clever people.

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  3. How fun and full of spring this is! very nice job with these!

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  4. I love how those turned out! What a great take on the flower theme Rose! I might have to try those one day too!

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  5. these turned out just lovely! Such a cheery little corner of your office!

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  6. I love these, they turned out so great!

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  7. I love these! They are so bright and cute, yet very natural, at the same time.

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  8. Really pretty! I love the bright colors!

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  9. These look so cheerful! They have a folkloristic feel to them which I love :)

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  10. Love the flowers, there's so cute.

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  11. the hoops and flowers are very cheery for a spring hanging (does that not sound right...?) I know exactly what you mean about buying supplies, and not wanting to build a stash of materials that you don't usually use. {:-D

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  12. They're so colorful! Perfect for brightening things up after all that crappy weather we had.

    I don't keep a ton of fabric around either, but I usually have a few remnant pieces that I like. I tend to buy them with the intention of making pillows, but sometimes they have to sit around for a while first, haha.

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  13. Those are so pretty! I love how bright and cheerful they are.

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  14. How bright and cheery! I love the burlap background.

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  15. What bright and cheerful flowers! Great idea to warm up your space!

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