Stay at Home Who?: Channeling My Inner Craft Nerd

Last week during one of the many ugly and rainy days, I was surfing around online. I was looking through Etsy.com and kept seeing cute crafty items for sale using fabric rosettes. I remember my mom telling me that they weren't hard to make so I set out to figure out how to make them. I googled for a tutorial but didn't find any I particularly liked. I decided to take a break from searching and look around at some crafty blogs because I was in that kind of mood. I skipped from blog to blog, checking out several I had never seen before and ran across a rosette tutorial that I actually liked!

kikicreates.blogspot.com Rosette Tutorial

The tutorial was nice and straightforward and I wanted to give it a go but I was missing two necessary parts. First of all I needed felt for the backs of the rosettes, and second I needed a hot glue gun. It was getting late so a run to the store was not possible at that point but I was determined to try making one. I figured a needle and thread would work even better than a hot glue gun, though it would take longer. I substituted card paper for felt since I had some laying around right next to me on the couch. It was a little awkward sewing through the card but it worked well anyway and I had made my first rosette. I made two more just to make sure it wasn't just a fluke. . . luckily it wasn't. They were a little funky looking but I knew that with the proper parts to make them, I could do a much better job.

The big flower on the left was a different kind that I made while I was impatiently trying to find a rosette tutorial. It turned out pretty cute too.

The next day I went to the gym and noticed on my way out that a JoAnn craft store was just a couple of blocks from the gym. I went right over and purchased some felt, some more fabric, and a hot glue gun. I decided I needed to make this an actual project and not just make rosettes so I bought a wire frame for a wreath. It was my mother-in-law's birthday that weekend anyway so it was a good excuse to make something as a gift. While paying I remembered that I had some decent JoAnn's coupons emailed to me earlier that week so I pulled them up on my phone for the cashier and left paying less than $20 for everything.

Here are the fabrics that I bought including the felt and some burlap (I'll explain that later):

I bought four quilting pieces of patterned fabrics (18" x 21" I think) and a half yard of a solid coordinating color. Here is a close up of the prints (I love picking out fabrics):

The wreath frame:

Now that I had all the necessary supplies and both kiddos were napping I could get started.

This was my first rosette:

I was so excited that it turned out nicely. . . I told you I'm a nerd!

I got on a roll and soon I had already plowed through the first two patterned fabrics:

Then three:

Until they were all done:

I had my rosettes all set so I started on the wreath frame. I ripped 4-6" strips of the solid fabric and wrapped the frame neatly:

Once wrapped, I set the rosettes along the wreath and decided that there weren't enough rosettes. I tore up the rest of the solid fabric and made another dozen and a half rosettes that were mostly on the smaller end for filler. I then took the trusty hot glue gun and glued everything down really well. The burlap was going to be the finishing touch, I cut a long strip of the stuff, made a bow, stuck the bow on the wreath, and frayed it. It still looked a tiny bit bare. I looked around and I had made a mess with the burlap, burlap unravels rather easily and I had a bunch of burlap string all over. I decided to wrap the string all around the wreath around the rosettes and it was finally done:

Here you can kind of see the burlap string wrapped all over around the wreath:

I was pretty happy with how it turned out. In total this took me about three hours but I also fed H and kept her entertained for the last two hours of it. She was a pretty good sport and played next to me most of the time. Girlfriend loves her puffs:

When I was done I was all hot glue gun happy so I decided that I needed to do something with the original pink flowers I had made the night before. I don't have any pink decor in my house other than in H's room so I went in there to find something to decorate. I found this empty shadow box that I keep meaning to put something in, but never get around to doing:

I glued some flowers on and voila; instant shabby chic shadow box:

Here it is back on her shelf just waiting for me to put something in it other than the generic family pictures that came with it:

So there you have a couple of cute projects that are fairly simple and make great gifts. I don't know when I will go all Martha Stewart like that again. I have creative bursts that come and go as they please, but I usually have fun when I indulge them.