And a flower in her hair

I'm not much of a DIY bride, but I had one project I absolutely loved.

I'm not sure if it was the romantic "idea" of a flower, or my belief that a bride should always have something beautiful on her head, but I loved making this. I loved it so much that I didn't want to finish it, so I didn't, until the week of the wedding.

From the beginning of my wedding planning, I saw these beautiful hair pieces and was disappointed that they cost so much, when they looked like something I could learn to make. So I pledged to teach myself how to do it, and now I'll teach you, too! (I'm very excited about this.)

I actually made this project twice. The first one was made hastily the night before my bridal portrait (photos by Heather Essian).




 
It looked okay in photos, but quickly frayed and fell apart.  I knew I had to start again from scratch.

I had a million inspirations, but I decided that I wanted a big, fluffy flower with a presence, since I didn't wear a veil at the reception. I also wanted it to match my dress somewhat, so I used some leftover fabric scraps from my seamstress, as well as different fabric scraps I had lying around, which included some off-white and white silk dupioni, and some silk taffeta. These were rejected samples from when I was trying to choose the fabric for my dress.

For this, I used my own variation of the Martha Stewart Fabric Flower method, which I have previously attempted. This one was a little more successful (and there have been several practice flowers in between).  Other options include the "layers of fabric" method, and the "silk flower take-apart" method.

I used:
- a good pair of fabric scissors
- About 1 1/2 yards total of silk dupioni/shantung/taffeta fabrics in various shades of champagne, ivory and white
- some pieces of tulle
- swarovski crystals and stray beads (from my dress)
- Aleene's Stop Fraying glue
- sewing supplies (needle, thread, pins, etc.)
- Time (I returned to this project off and on for several weeks, but could probably do it in two weekends)
- A hair clip to attach it to
- a beautiful earring or brooch for the center

I cut the scraps in oval/kidney shapes. I varied the sizes a bit to give the flower dimension. Here are the petals lined up (mostly) by size:

For added fluffiness, I gave some of the shapes different "petals" on each end. This one has two:

After each shape was cut, I put some of this "stop fraying!" gel/glue around the edges. It got a little sticky, so use an extremely small amount. I used one of Mr. Oyster's extra paintbrushes to apply it.

This took me about an hour, and I left them to dry for a day. Actually, they dried in a day, but I left them sitting here for a week. I used my stacking cookie racks for this. Mr. Oyster kept saying, "The cookies are done, honey! When can I eat them?" Silly Oyster!

In the middle of each flower, I folded the flower roughly in half and stitched once or twice in the middle.

Then, I layered the flowers on top of each other, from largest to smallest, in kind of a circle pattern. To see what it looked like, I stuck a sewing pin through it and fluffed out the "petals." Here you can see the blending of the different shades of silk fabric. I took this picture in natural light so you can see the colors better.

I don't have photos of these next steps, because they happened two weeks before the wedding when everything was crazy.

I took the pin out, turned the flower over, and stitched each flower to the one(s) below it, one at a time. I know you can just sew all the way through the whole thing, but that won't work with this many "petals." I wanted to make sure they all stayed in place.

On a few of the "petals," I sewed on a few Swarovski crystals (found at JoAnn's), and then "hidden" in places I added a few extra leftover beads from my dress. I only used a few, because I just wanted some extra sparkle, and didn't want to weigh the fabric down too much.

While shopping at Anthropologie, I found a beautiful (beautiful!) pair of earrings. You can't see in this picture, but underneath the rhinestones are tiny holes -- perfect for sewing! I took one of the earrings, bent the post under, and sewed the earring onto the center of the flower.




And here it is, my finished hair flower in action! I forgot to fluff it out when I put it on after the ceremony, but I think it still looks nice. I'm so proud!