Upcycled Flowers

April 22, is Earth Day.  To honour that, I am doing upcycling projects for the month of April.  Upcycling is basically taking something that has little to no value (usually headed to the garbage bin) and turning it into something that has added value.  Basically, it's keeping more things from landing in our landfills.  I hope you enjoyed my Upcycled Armwarmers from last week.

This week I made Upcycled Flowers.  Basically, I found myself in the position of several unwanted ties.  I didn't want to toss them and didn't know of anyone who would wear them.  So I decided to turned them into something I can use.

Materials:

Old ties (make sure they are clean)
Feathers
Unwanted buttons or beads
Thread
Felt
Glue
Flower template (I use flower cookie cutters and traced them)
Scissors
Sewing needle
Pen

Directions:

Turn the tie over so the back side is facing you on the table and cut open the seams so you have a long strip of fabric.  You can iron the strip at this point to flatten out the folds.

Take your Flower template and trace it on the wrong side of the fabric using the pen.  For each finished piece, you want to trace four flowers.

Cut the shapes out using the scissors.  Put the unused fabric aside for more flowers later.

With the needle and thread, knot the end of the thread and pull it through the middle of all four flower shapes. twists the shapes so that the petals are not sitting on top of each other.  Then sew an X through the middle to secure the pieces in place.

Sew or glue a button in the center of the flower.

Cut a 1 inch square of felt.  Glue two or three feathers so that they stick out of the left corner of the square.

Glue the flower onto the square, making sure that the feathers stick out looking like leaves.

Once the glue dries, you have a beautiful flower.  You can make a brooch out of it, a hair piece, or make a stem for it and stick it in a vase.

If you want more upcycling ideas, I suggest reading AlterNation by Shannon Okey and Alexandra Underhill.  This book has lots of fun ideas involving clothes and accessories.  They even have some more tie ideas.  I like the project for make a dressy outfit out of bed sheets and pillow case.

If you like this tutorial, consider donating to my transplant fund at http://cota.donorpages.com/PatientOnlineDonation/COTAforSolanaC/