Wedding Season

For most people, wedding season is in the summer. Well, apparently this year it's in the fall for me! I have two friends getting married within a week of each other that I am involved in their weddings!

Well, wedding #1 is this Saturday. She's a good friend from high school and we've been through a lot together. She also owns her own bridal shop, so all of us have killer dresses! Mine is a simple A-line black, sleeveless dress (don't worry, my linebacker arms are going to be hidden by a black lace shrug.) Her colors are black and white, which some might think that's a bit boring, but I think it will be incredibly elegant. As my dress is incredibly simple I wanted to make something to spice it up a bit and accentuate my "used to be there" waist. Here's what I came up with.

Supplies:

*1/2 yard of Shiny Tule and Satin

*Needle and Thread

*Candle

* Embellishments for the center of your flower (I used a sparkly button for the big flower and pearl beads for the rest.)

*3" Wide Satin Ribbon

*Sew On Snaps

*Glue Gun

Step 1: Create a stencil for your flowers. I free handed my flowers on a piece of paper and then cut out my flowers from that. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, Google "Flower Patterns." Cut out a set of each flower, in descending sizes, in both the Tule and the Satin.

Step 2: Take each flower and melt the edges of your petals. Keep the Satin pieces a few inches above the flame. For the Tule you need to keep it about 6" above the flame, any closer will make your Tule ball up into a bad mess. You will need two Tule and two Satin pieces in each size. If you want a big flower, two of all your sizes. For smaller, just start with the size of flower you want and go down in size.
Step 3: Decide on your shape and pattern you want. I found laying them out helped me decide on what I wanted in the middles. I have the jewels in the center of the middle sized flowers here, but I decided to do a cluster of three pearl beads after looking at it.
Step 4: Stitch your flowers together. You can pin them so they stay put in the pattern you want. Then you will do a wide stitch in the center of your flower, going around in a circle.
Step 5: Pull your thread tight, it brings your flowers in to create more dimension and helps to curl the flowers in, like a real flower. Tie your thread off on the back side of your flowers.
Step 6: Now to work on your ribbon belt. Measure your ribbon around your waist and cut it off. Melt the edges of your ribbon with your candle.
Step 7: Hand stitch your snaps onto each side of your ribbon. Fold your ribbon over a bit, to give the snaps more stability. **Note: Make sure you have one set of snaps on the bottom side of one side of your ribbon and one set on the top of the other side. This will save you from having to redo your stitches... like I did. It should look like this. Glue the extra ribbon that was folded down. It gives it more stability again and you won't have to fight with it when you have your sash on.
Step 8: Snap your ribbon together and take your center flower to decide the best way to hide the snaps and the seams.

Should look like this. Glue your flower onto the ribbon. You can hand stitch it, but I went for the easy way and just glued it on.

Step 9: Glue/stitch the rest of your flowers onto your ribbon. Looks seamless and more polished. And you're done!

Here's another view of it! I will post a picture of it on my black dress... as soon as the alterations are done with it.

Enjoy!