Mock Kanzashi Ribbon Flowers

Kanzashi flowers are essentially a type of Japanese fabric flower origami. While there are numerous tutorials on the internet on how to make kanzashi flowers, I personally have never quite been able to get them right. Something about aligning the petals gets me every time.

However, I have had success with these very simple ribbon flowers that somewhat resemble Kanzashi flowers. Hence, why I am referring to them as "Mock Kanzashi Ribbon Flowers"

Check out the tutorial below!

And in case you were wondering, yes, my cat finally did get to come in and see what I was up to.

How to Make Fabric Strip Flowers

Fabric strip flowers are a great way to use any pieces of scrap fabric you have lying around. They're easy to make but have more of an alternative flower look than the gathered fabric flowers. All you need is some fabric scraps (or ribbon, if you want to do less cutting), a needle and thread, and something to put in the center (beads, buttons, etc).

Made of strips of satin fabrics

Made of strips of organza and satin ribbon

And Now For the Tutorial!

How to Make Gathered Fabric Flowers

Gathered fabric flowers are extremely simple and easy to make. All you need is a strip of fabric and a needle and thread. Any size strip of fabric will do, but the final look and feel will differ depending on the width and length of the fabric you use and whether or not you choose to fold it. You can also use beads and buttons for decorating your fabric flowers.

These fabric flowers were created using a 3-inch wide, 30-inch long pieces of fabric with buttons for the centers.

This fabric flower was created using a wide, but shorter strip of fabric cut from an old dress and then sewn on top of another gathered strip to keep it from flopping due to its size. The edges were sealed with clear nail polish to prevent fraying and the center is 3 plastic pearl beads.

These were created from strips of satin materials. The edges have not been sealed.

And Now For the Tutorial!

My Ribbon Rose Bouquet

Just wanted to share with you guys my ribbon rose bouquet, so I did a quick video blog :)

Ribbon Flower Earrings

So you may have already gotten the free ribbon flower tutorial from my website HowToMakeRibbonFlowers.com

I received an email the other day from someone expressing disappointment because the flowers were not small enough to make earrings from.

I hadn't thought about making earrings from fabric and ribbon flowers before. Can you make them small enough to make earrings from? I decided to try it and see.

I used the same ribbon flower as in the free tutorial from my site, but with a dime-sized piece of felt and a 13 in (33.02 cm) piece of ribbon. I cut the ribbon in half length-wise and made the crimps a lot closer together. You can probably use a slightly shorter piece of ribbon as I ended up cutting off the excess at the end. For more details on how to make the flower, you can get the free video tutorial from HowToMakeRibbonFlowers.com

What do you think? Too gaudy? Just right? Where would you wear these to and with what?

The pair with the yellow center ended up slightly smaller than the pair with the purple center. 

 

Course Released!

So I've finally finished and released my fabric and ribbon flower course. I'm pretty excited about it. Go to HowToMakeRibbonFlowers.com to check it out!

How to Make Frayed Fabric Flowers

Here's my first fabric flower tutorial. Unfortunately the quality on this one isn't up to my standards, but all future videos should be much better!

For this, I used a 37in (~94cm) strip of denim, a needle, some thread, and a button. It's easy to make, even if sewing is not your thing. I just sliced up a pair of old jeans for my fabric strip. You don't even have to be able to cut straight.