Thank you and the June monthly craft challenge.

First of all, I would like to say thank you for all of the nice comments you made following my last week's post.

This past week hasn't been much of an improvement as I've not been well and no sales have materialised, but I've completed my Pride and Prejudice rose heart commission (I'll show you pictures next week as it's not arrived at its new home yet) and have a few 'arty' ideas running around my head.

Now the main subject of this post, the June Get Crafty with Creative Connections monthly challenge. The theme for this month is summer (a bit ironic at the moment I know!) and my contribution is a felt flower corsage.

A selection of felt flower corsages that I have been making.

I love to use felt for something like this as it doesn't fray and you can cut intricate pieces from it. The urge for making felt corsages came from Henhouse's blog as she had been making some for a workshop she was holding.  Apparently a lot of these felt corsages were made during the second World War as felt wasn't rationed and the availability of flowers were low due to all of the land being used to grow food etc.

To make yourself one of these corsages you will need felt, a brooch back (though a safety pin would do), embroidery thread and other bits and bobs to decorate your flowers with (I've used buttons and beads mainly).

There's a multitude of flower shapes you can use for your corsage you decide on  how you want your corsage to look. You will need leaf templates too if you want to add these.

Flower cardboard templates.

Felt flower and leaf shapes

You will need to add a back to the brooch to sew the flowers onto and have the brooch pin. You can choose your design either by starting with the shape of your back (perhaps a heart or large flower shape) and cut out flowers to cover it. Or you can decide what flowers you want to use and how you want to arrange them  and cut a back that fits your arrangement (usually a square or oblong). Your back pieces need to be big enough to contain your arrangement without it being seen from the front.

You will need to cut two pieces of felt for the back. One to sew the flowers onto and the other to hide the threads you use to sew the flowers on it and to add the brooch back to. The two pieces also make the brooch more substantial.

Decorate your flowers and leaves as you like. Here I've used buttons and beads for the flowers and embroidery for the leaves.

Note: the back of your flowers will probably be covered by the backing pieces,  but your leaves may not so make the back of them as neat as possible.

Next you need to pin your flowers and leaves onto one of your back pieces. 

You need to remember to put all of pins with their heads facing out as they be covered with a flower and you'll have difficulty firking them out.

Note: If you don't want to sew the flowers onto the backing you could glue them using a hot glue gun. You would then glue the second back piece on and then the brooch back.

 

When sewing the flowers onto the backing piece I use tiny stitches in thread that matches the  felt I'm sewing.

Next you need to sew the brooch pin (or safety pin) onto the second backing piece and then see the two pieces together.

Your brooch is now complete. 

The Creative Connections monthly challenge now has it's own website and this is where you post your items for each month's challenge (the one for June will be added soon).

As usual, I am participating in Handmade Monday, pop over and see what other makers have been up too.

TTFN

Louise