Wedding Flower Belt/tiara

Make a beautiful belt or hairdecoration for the wedding. Use fabricflowers in the wedding's colorscheme. Using thrifted materials and maybe borrowing a brooch you can make your own: "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue". This can be made both for the bride, the bridesmaids or even for the guests. Have fun!

Extra tip: make a coordinating smaller flower for the groom's boutonniére

A lot of the items are totally up to you, what you have or will find on your shoppingspree. It also depends on what style or colorscheme you want. I always shop for fabricflowers at the thriftstore (you know, the ones that sit on a ring that you have for candles). When it comes to other matierals I have loads and loads of different beads, beadcaps, ribbons, lace etc. at home. Make it work with what you have and this unique piece won't cost you much!

The main things you will need are:

Flowers - always get more than you think you'll need. Adding layers uses up a lot of flowers

Beads - bigger for the middle and tiny for the ends

Beadcaps

Ribbon and/or lace

A piece of felt

scissors, needle, coordinating or clear thread

Start by making a base in white felt (or whichever color coordinates the best with your flowers).

We do this by making a pattern in paper first.

Fold a piece of paper twice

Draw a pattern and cut out

Unfold - this is your finished pattern. If you want you can adjust it any way you want. By foldning it and cutting it out like this you ensure that it's symmetrical.

Fold your pattern once and fold your feltpiece once. Align the folded pieces. Pin in place and cut around. Do this twice so you have two pieces in felt.

Take out your flowers and decide which ones you want to use. Also check which beads and beadcaps you want to use.

When you have decided on the flowers, take them apart.

If your piece of felt is too white you can color it in so it matches better, like I did. I used distressink to darken my edges, but if you want to make sure it doesn't stain skip this part or use something you know won't bleed.

Thread your needle and make a knot.

If your felt is quite thin like mine stitch a couple of times up and down to make sure the thread is securely attached.

Decide on how your flower is supposed to look by putting all the materials on top of eachother.

Thread your petals and beads in the order you arranged them.

Thread back everything EXCEPT the tiny bead you have at the end. This bead is what keeps it all from falling apart.

Secure the thread at the back a couple of times.

Ta daa - your first flower is ready.

Arrange your other flowers. I noticed that if I bent my piece there was a lot of free space showing through so I added more flowers there. Bend the piece the way it will be used to see if there are any gaps. Keep adding as shown in the previous step until you are happy with the design.

If your piece of felt is a bit thin like mine, and you add heavy beads you might want to add that extra piece of felt to add extra sturdiness. This is optional and depends on the quality of felt you have used. If you do, use small stitches around the edges to attach the both pieces together.

I found this awesome piece of antique lace in my stash (middle one). It wasn't long enough to reach around a waist, but enough to cover the front so I mixed this with a plain satinribbon.

Attach everything to the flowerpiece by using small stitches all around.

You are done!

Decide on if you want to use it as a belt, a hairdecoration or anything else.

Hope you liked this tutorial. If you did - please vote for me in the "wedding" contest (orange vote button in the top right)

If you make this, let me know. I'd love to see how yours turns out.

/Katarina