Tutorial on wrapping a fabric flower bouquet

Tutorial Time!!

How to wrap a fabric flower stem bouquet.

 

Once you’ve done these two steps, you are ready to start wrapping your stems into a bouquet!

Make sure you’ve made tons of flowers. If you’re doing a brides size bouquet, I would suggest roughly 25-35 flowers . You can make the same type of flower or a variety to mix, but if you do a mix, make sure you have different sizes to play with.

Here is a quick tutorial on how to make 2 different rose flowers using the same technique for both.

 http://yourforeverpetals.blogspot.ca/2013/07/how-to-make-2-different-rose-flowers.html

You will begin by taking 2 bunches of the same flowers to come up with the size of the bouquet. I usually use 3 or 4 flowers per bunch.

 

Gather the bunch and wrap together. Do the same with the second bunch.

Then wrap the 2 bunches together.

 

                               

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, you will want to separate them to make a circle. You want to push them low enough so that from a side view, you don’t see the wires. If you don’t push them down low enough, when you get to the part of making the skirt, it will look like a ball placed on a stick, and not a half ball placed on a stick which is what you want.  (You can see on the left, one stem is a little longer, I later fixed that by bending the stem to make it shorter. )

 

Once you’ve decided on the shape, you will decide on the height of your bouquet. I like to use a larger flower. A nice one that you like the most. It’s the flower that is shown off the most and it’s the highest, so you want to make sure it’s the perfect one. Decide on how high and tape it into place. When deciding the height, you need to take into consideration that you want to keep the bouquet rounder, and not make it like a pyramid .

 

Now, you will pick 2-3 bunches of how ever many types you have made. I made 7 different flowers, so 2-3 stems of the 7 flowers.

You’ll go from the largest flowers to the smaller ones. Keeping in mind that the large flowers are going to add fullness, and the smaller flowers will fill the small holes.

Start by placing one flower on one side, then placing another flower of the same group on the other side. And wrap. Making sure you try and balance the same flowers in the bouquet.

I try to only wrap 2-3 flowers at a time. You want to create thickness in your handle, so don’t be shy to tape. Even at every stem, if you want a really thick handle. Make sure you tape all the way to the bottom. Try not to leave any metal sticking out, it tends to get harder to cut them at the end. If they do stick out, cut them off flush to where you finished taping right away to avoid difficulties later.

 

Keep going through all the bunches of flowers, remembering to go from the largest to the smallest, and to space the same type of flower around the bouquet.

After each bunch, stop. And take a step back. Look at how its transforming into a bouquet. You may want to adjust some of them. Un tape and replace. This is the time to do it. Because once they are all wrapped up, it’s really too late. 

Once you wrapped all the flowers, see if there are still any little holes. This is when you can make a filler. I usually take the main color to make these. In this case, the main color was the mint color. I simply take a strip of fabric, fold it in half, and do a slip stitch across. When I gather it up, I want to stay in an inch to two inches thickness. I knot my string to keep the bunch together. I take a circle and do the same steps as when I stem the flowers, except I fold it in half to enclose the accordion like filler.

 

 

 

These can be tucked into any little hole.

Once you’re happy with how the bouquet looks you can add brooches, which is done the same way as the flowers.  You can skip this little part if you’re not adding brooches.

To stem the brooches is the same way as the flowers. You can use felt circles to make them more sturdy, or you can glue when the wire connects with the back of the brooch.

Finally you’re almost done!! The last part is to make sure everything is secure. Generously tape from as high as you can go to the bottom of the stems.  This again, will give it more thickness, so if you feel its thick enough, simply go over it one last time quickly to ensure the stems are well wrapped together.

There you have it! You’ve wrapped your flowers into a beautiful bouquet!!

 

Hope you enjoyed.

Check back for more tutorials!

 

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