Monday, April 11, 2011

Duct Tape Flowers With Buttons!

So, It's been a minute since I posted anything, I'm not sure why, but I discovered these and shared it with my friend Hollie (Hatchet Hollie) and we are now bow making fools!  First off I saw these first on Vitamin C, she has a lot of amazing things on there check it out!  She has the link on her page Helen's Blog, I really wanted to follow her but what she's on is not blogger and I'm fairly new, I guess I can't follow people that aren't?  Suggestions?  Anyways I'm just in love love love with these, the tutorial on Helen's Blog is for just a basic one, very cute and super duper easy!  We've been playing around with different things like length and cutting designs to change them up. 
So start with two pieces of tape, same or different, I think two different colors or a color and a design look more interesting, about 18 in.

Stick them together, this is very tricky, a smooth flat surface is best, I'm getting pretty good at getting it close to perfect, not so much on this one lol.
I decided to try a wave design, I hadn't tried it yet, I was disappointed with it, but it turned out not to matter.  Btw, this is going to make two flowers, I call them opposite twins.

A little sewing involved, simple though, I've been using embroidery thread, it's worked out pretty good.  For the most part it really doesn't matter what color, but a couple of times I have wished I used a color somewhat close and since I have no silver thread, I chose red.
Start in the corner and just do in and out stitches, super easy.

As you so, you're going to pull the thread so it starts to crinkle.

Keep crinkling 

Little more
Keep going till you reach the other corner, tie off.  You should have a spiralish thing going on.

Cut some felt for backing, this step is optional I just think it looks nicer.
Pick out some buttons.

Take some time to play with the shape, at this length, it's gonna overlap, once you find what you like and put a couple of blobbies (teehee) of glue (your choice, I like it hot) to hold it in place.
Glue on the backing, I apologize for my legs, lol my glue gun cord is pretty short.
Put something in your clip before gluing, so you don't glue it together, I been using this scrap duct tape, it actually works better than anything else I've used.

Feel around the edges for a place it will be easy to open the clip and glue!

Glue on your button(s) and you're finished, see easy right?
Opposite twins!
This tutorial is for one of the alternatives, I want to make a few to show the different things you can do with this same basic principle.

4 comments:

  1. I love the scrap ducktape idea! i bet it does pull off easy. The red one is super cute!!

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  2. Yes it really does hot glue doesn't really stick to duct tape i've discovered, one of my backs came off i gotta re-glue it, I think we should use tacky glue or something it just will take longer to dry

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  3. Did the tacky glue work better or have you found a better adhesive??

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  4. No, still using hot glue, if it's a good hot glue gun and good glue sticks it should melt the tape a bit and it sticks pretty good, we've been making these a while now, and still haven't tried an alternative.

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