finish handmade flowers

How to finish your handmade flowers

Variety is the spice of life.

I am sure you’ve heard this expression before. Luckily, there are so many different flowers in the world, there’s no problem with the variety here.

But what when it comes to finishes of our handmade flowers? What can they be turned into to become wearable accessories? Do we have a variety here? Let’s have a closer look.

Brooch is the first one that comes to mind probably. Indeed, brooches are very popular. So are flower corsages as well as buttonholes.
Over the years I have released a number of tutorials which cover this type of finish. Some of the popular ones are listed below:
silk iris tutorial leather grape tutorial cover leather corsage tutorial
Hair accessories with flowers are ever so popular. They include but are not limited to headbands, hair clips, hair combs and flower circlets (see below).
Moreover, most, if not all handmade flowers can be used for hat and fascinator trims.

 

lace flower tutorial

Making silk and leather flowers into necklaces and chokers is another great idea. Depending on your choice of flowers, colours and material you can get anything from a delicate bridal necklace to a bold statement leather piece.

Flower shoe clips is yet another, possibly less obvious but nonetheless very effective way of using handmade flowers (see the tutorials below):
silk orchid tutorial silk marie antoinette rose tutorial leather shoe clips tutorial

 

Leather Anemone Collage

 

In my tutorials I have also covered a flower bracelet.

 

However, handmade flower applications are not limited to the ones mentioned above.
You can also try making flower earrings, flower bow tie brooches (for shirts and blouses), hair wreaths, flower sashes, flower rings and flower stick pins, as well as other wearable flower pieces (I bet I have not listed them all).
Feel free to experiment and share the results of your trials. I am sure there are still a lot of new ideas to be discovered and tested in flower making.

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leather flower shoe clips with gerberas

Making leather flower shoe clips

Britain is (finally!) enjoying a bit of sunshine and warmth, which can be a perfect time to sport your summer style … and flowers ☺
Whilst leather flowers might not be necessarily associated with summer, one of their applications is particularly great for summer. I am talking about leather flower shoe clips, a firm favourite of mine.

Leather flower shoe clips are ideal for decorating plain court shoes or peep-toes, or in fact any pair of your favourite shoes that could benefit from jazzing up.
making leather flower shoe clips
Although not all types of leather flowers can be successfully used for shoe clips from the technical side, there are a lot of them that make stunning leather shoe clips. Think sunflowersdahliasdaisiesgerberascornflowerscertain roseschrysanthemumscamellias and many others. In other words the suitable flowers have to have a relatively flat underside to stand a chance to be successfully transformed into shoe clips.
To make your first pair of leather flower shoe clips follow our detailed step-by-step tutorial on leather gardenia shoe clips. Not only do you learn how to make leather gardenias, the tutorial will reveal the mystery behind turning flowers into wearable shoe clips once and for all.
Once you’ve mastered the leather gardenia shoe clips, you can start creating other flower shoe clips, like Leather Dahlia, Leather Chrysanthemum, Leather Sunflower, Leather Gerbera or Camellia to name a few.
Press the button below to add the leather gardenia shoe clips tutorial to your library of flower making tutorials and start creating your very own leather flower shoe clips. For more  ideas on suitable flower tutorials for shoe clips see the pictures below.
making leather flower shoe clips

Although we’ve been talking about leather flowers for shoe clips, it’s worth mentioning that silk flowers are perfectly suitable for this too, same rules about the choice of flowers applied.
Velvet camellias, silk sunflowers, satin daisies and gerberas – the sky is the limit here. Think about embroidering the centres of your flowers like daisies with beads for a more elegant and sophisticated look.

 

HAVE FUN CREATING!