TUTORIAL: How a Bridesmaids Dress Becomes a DIY Flower

Yesterday I wrote about the Two Hour Felted Slippers I made for the craft swap. Well, the swappiness didn’t stop there. My swap recipient, Marla, mentioned that she’d love to receive some sort of headband. I had been thinking about making some rosettes for a while now and decided that the craft swap was just the right occasion.

Two years ago, Mike’s brother Jon and my (now) sister-in-law, Amanda, got hitched. I was lucky enough to be a bridesmaid in the wedding and I got to wear a gorgeous cabernet-colored raw silk dress. The other day I was cleaning out my closet in anticipation of our upcoming move and came across the dress. It dawned on me that if I shorted it a bit and paired it with tights and some bling, it would be the perfect Christmas party dress. So I decided to get ahead of the game by cutting off the bottom three inches of the dress. This also happened to help the cause of DIY-ing a spur-of-the-moment rosette.

There are plenty of great tutorials that explain how to make a rosette out there already. Look here or here for detailed instructions. Miss Lovie had the idea of incorporating a chain into a rosette, which I just loved. To me, the chain makes the flower look like a little piece of fall jewelry you’d find at Anthropologie or JCrew. For $39.

Ingredients you’ll need:
jewelry chain (I used about 12″ of chain per rosette)
scissors
hot glue
a bridesmaid dress, wool, or other cool fabric
a headband, clip, pin or barrette

I picked up about 48″ of gold-colored jewelry chain at Michael’s for $3.99. Because the raw silk collapsed to be pretty thin when it was twisted, I found that about a 3″ thick piece worked best to achieve the rosette thickness I was going for. I used about 18″ in length. It’s a little tricky to wrap the fabric and the chain together without giving yourself third degree hot glue gun burns, but after a few rounds it gets easier.

Once the rosette is the size you want, pop a pin, barrette or headband on the back and you’ve got yourself an awesome little gift. In the end, I decided the deep red rosette broach was a good choice to send to my grandma for her birthday this week. I’m hoping she gets a lot of miles out of it this holiday season.

For Marla, I decided to make a rosette with beautiful bluish wool I had in my stash. Since the wool was significantly thicker than the silk, I found that I needed a much narrower strip of fabric to make the rosette. I cut about 20″ of a 1.25″ thick strip and then ironed the edges under so that the raw edge wouldn’t unravel too much in the middle of the flower. Then cut a half inch thick strip of wool and used it to cover a plastic headband. I simply glued the rosette to the headband and just like that, Marla got her headband. During this rosette session, I also whipped up a little clip for myself using some other leftover wool I had. If this doesn’t scream autumn hair flair, I don’t know what does.
I love how different these flowers look depending on what materials you use. The possibilities are endless! I think it might be time to rosettify my entire life!

(You can also find my DIY flower tutorial at Not Just a Housewife, Finding Fabulous Blog, Tatertots and Jello, Hope Studios, and Whipperberry.)