Leather Flower (Zinnia Barrette)

I've made several leather flowers of all types and thought I'd share one with you since the leather contest fit with this project. Although this isn't technically a zinnia it's what it most closely resembles.

I may do other flowers as a series here including a rose. This would show different petal shapes, flower centers, and bases like a brooch or a stem, so keep an eye out for future tutorials!

2-4oz. leather, less than a square ft.

Sewing pin with a round head or small bead

Barrette blank, small, mine is 2" long (can also use a brooch pin)

Glue - something that holds quick and is strong. I used Goop.

Scissors, small for petals, larger/stronger for cutting base

A heat source - lighter, stove burner, heat gun (if it doesn't blow air)

Something to hold your petals while heating - pliers or metal tongs

Something small, thin, and pokey like a toothpick (also good for glue spreading)

Metal snips

Cut a small rectangle of leather. No need to be precise, mine is 1/2" X 3/4". Roll it into a tube overlapping and gluing the short edge (so this one ended up being 1/2" tall).

Again, precision isn't too important. You want a more or less teardrop shape. I started with four petals 1/2" high and 1/4" wide at the widest part. Curling will take care of any rough edges and petals are never uniform in nature so if they vary here it will look fine.

To curls your petal hold it in something metal (pliers or tongs) over a heat source. For this flower I used a lighter because you can't use a burner with something so small but I couldn't get a picture of that because of the flame so the pictures are of a bigger petal over a stove burner. The stove burner is my preferred heat source as the open flame of a lighter causes more char on the leather.

Hold the petal with the suede side down close to the thin end in your tongs/pliers, hold a small petal fairly close to the flame, a larger one about an inch from the burner. After a few seconds the leather will start to fold and curl towards the heat source. You can move the flame closer or farther and change the angle or direction of the petal to get the curl where you want. The leather WILL burn so be ready to put out fire if necessary and know that it will smell like charred leather in the room. If you burn a petal too much cut off the burned part or make a new one, there will almost always be some blackening of the suede side.

It's generally better with smaller ones to curl as you go, the bigger ones I try to curl all my petals at once.

I started with four petals. First I put some glue into the tube (used non expanding clear gorilla glue) then stuck in the petals until only the curved part stuck out. The fourth petal can be tricky to get into the tube, that's where the pokey thing comes in handy. If you need to lay the thin part of your petal over the center of the tube and poke it in with the toothpick. Your petals are in but standing a bit tall, put some glue (switched here to goop and used it from here on) between the rim of the tube and the petals and flatten them.

Cut your pin to a length much shorter than the tube, maybe only a centimeter, long enough to keep it stable but that's it (the reason will be clear later). Put a little glue on it and insert it into the center of your petals for a flower center. If you are using a bead just add glue and place it in the center.

Add another ring of four petals of the same size as the first four. Smear your glue with your toothpick along the tube and up onto the underside of the previous petals, try not to get glue on the face of the petals. Place the new petals so they are in the gaps formed by the original petals. For the next set of petals make them a bit bigger. You want more length because you are now curving further around the original petals where as the first ones went straight up. The size difference is small so don't get carried away. Continue placing the new petals in the gaps formed by the last ring of petals. I did one ring of 8 of this size.

I went up one more size for my last two rings of 8 petals, now making them a bit wider because the gaps are getting bigger. The first ring of this size will look very patchy but will fill out with the last ring. Feel free to add an extra petal here or there if it looks bare somewhere, or replace a petal that's too small with one that's bigger. We are not tied to exactly 4/8 petals per ring.

Let it sit for a bit to set the glue so the petals don't get nudged out of place while working further.

You can of course make this larger. Continue with rings of petals for as long as you like or start with a larger starting tube and petals.

Turn your flower upside down, you can see that your base tube is pretty tall and if you tried to stick it on your barrette it would look pretty odd. Take a larger pair of scissors and cut through the tube so that the flower will lie flatter to the base. This is why you cut your pin short, if it wasn't short enough you may need to cut around it and use your snips again.

We want to keep everything both tidy looking and put together so we are going to cover the back with a single piece of leather. In my case I wanted to add the look of leaves and I have green leather so I cut my base a bit like a star checking to see where the tips would show once it was glued in place before I cut. If you don't want to do this just cut a circle slightly smaller than the finished flower. Cut a hole in the middle of this new base piece (fold the leather in half and cut a half moon) to accommodate the tube, you want the flower to sit as flat as possible.

The green points I left on mine will show as slight bits of green triangle suggesting leaves.

Check your petals and use a toothpick to carefully scrape off any excess glue you missed.

Because the flower will not cover the entire barrette it's nice to decorate it too. I used some of the green leather to cover the ends. I left the gap in the middle to glue the flower into so the flower lays as flat as possible to the barrette. Even if you used a glue that is a bit weaker elsewhere you definitely want to use your strongest glue to attach the flower. Under no circumstances use hot glue. Hot glue is initially impressive but it's bulky and once it cools it can be peeled off with barely any pressure. Use a contact cement or gorilla glue if you can.

And we're finished! Enjoy your unique accessory and all the people asking where you got it :).