Bella Nube Rose Tutorial

My sister knows me all too well. I made this... 

out of this.

My sister bought/sent Sam a silk lined wool skirt that she found at a thrift store. She knew I could "fix" it for Sam...and I did.  I threw it in the wash and dryer. Bingo! The skirt shrank so much that it fits Sam perfect now.  The lining is a different story.  

It didn't shrink as much.  So I cut it off the skirt.

I used half of the lining and cut up different sized squares...

cut these square in to random "cloud" shaped circles...

stacked them up by size...

and sewed each "cluster" right in the middle...just a couple of stitches, back and forth ...just enough to hold the "cluster" together...except for the last and smallest "cluster".

To the "cluster" that I didn't sew together, I hand-sewed on some beads...just random.  Then I hot glued it all together from the largest "cluster" to the smallest...added a pin to the back with hot glue...

and done...a beautiful cloud rose pin...

no matter the weather...

Bella Nube is Italian for Beautiful Cloud...and the darkening clouds tonight are definitely beautiful.  They hold an 80% chance of rain tonight and tomorrow...which is a very good thing for a drought stricken central Texas.

Silk Poppy Pin Tutorial

I'm sure you've seen these around, but just in case you haven't, here is a quick tutorial on how to make your own poppy flower pin.

You will need some silk fabric, a tea candle, fire, beads, pin, needle and thread.  About a year ago, a local designer was giving away outdated upholstery/drapery fabric sample books on Craigslist.  I called and made a mad dash to her studio. I came home with this:

Over 30 books all neatly kept in a trunk.  I clip and cut as I need from my never ending stash. For this flower I used some silk fabrics that I cut from the sample books.  If you don't have sample fabric books just laying around, don't worry.  I have used skirt lining fabric in the past and the flowers come out gorgeous. Here is a chocolate colored rose made from skirt lining:

Okay, the tutorial...cut out several circles from your fabric. You want to vary the size of the circles.  My largest circle was about 4 inches in diameter while the smallest was about 2 inches in diameter. I cut out several circles all from different samples.

Light the candle and very carefully, lightly singe the edge of the circle.  All you want to do is to prevent the fabric from fraying.  Sometimes, depending on the fabric, the fabric will curl in, and that's okay.

What is not okay is this; these actually caught fire!! So be very careful not to scorch your circles, or your house for that matter.

These turned out nice and rufflely...

Once you have all your circles done, choose which ones you want to use for your flower.  Play around with the position of the circles making sure to layer from the bottom up and from the largest circle to the smallest. Once you got the perfect combination, sew the circles together, sew on the beads and hot glue a pin to the back.

Don't be afraid to play with different color combinations.

And if you are still leery about making your own, you can always win one here.

Charming Rose Pin/Clip

I bought cream colored fake roses awhile back with the intent of using them to spruce up a pair of cream sandals. But that was not meant to be because now the once cream colored fake roses look like this

Don't they almost look like the real thing?

This is how I made them.  

Here is what they looked like before the splash of color.

 Take the flowers apart until you end up with just this

Lightly spray paint petals.  I used two different colors of pink and I like the result of the two.  Since I wanted just a light coat of paint on the petals, I put half of the petals in a small box, sprayed lightly, shook up petals in the box and repeated about 3 times. See the cream, light pink and darker pink colors? Let the petals completely dry before working with them.  

Once the petals were dry, I separated the petals by size and shape. 

It just makes things easier when arranging the new rose.  

I also used a pencil to help hold the rose together.

Once I had arranged the rose in a form that I liked, I carefully lifted it off the pencil point and sewed the petals together.  Then I sewed on some crystal beads

 and hot glued the backs with clips and pins. 

That was it.  

I was able to make 3 fuller roses out of the 5 original skimpy roses. 

Here's the one I made for Sam's hair.  

Here is a smaller rose that I made using the left over petals and white pearls. 

I really like how the duo pink tones play on the original cream color of the roses.  

The combination just makes the roses look realistic.