For the Gardener

There is a special day in mid-May where my mother, sister, aunt, grandmother, cousins and a few friends gather at a local greenhouse to pick out flowers and plant away! Gardening is one hobby that every one can excel at! This past year my very talented aunt found some fun vinyl baskets and I thought to show you today how to dress one up with a custom flower with ribbon made from May Arts.

Did you hear that May Arts is having a design team call? I have loved being on the team this past year and would love it even more to continue on for next year! So let's get started, shall we? For the flower, you'll only need a few items.

Gather up your ribbon: which would include ~ 2 feet of 1.5" grosgrain ric-rac, ~6 inches of 1/2" colored woven burlap and ~5 inches of burlap string. May Arts offers a variety of colors in each of the styles, so have fun choosing a bright and sunny color combination to suite your needs!

Start by cutting the ric-rac into two inch strips. You'll need about 17 or so of these, depending on the fullness of the flower. I used the Imaginisce Ribbon Cutter, it gives such a clean cut to your ribbon by slightly burning the edges to prevent fraying.

Next, onto the easy assembly of the flower! 1. Gather two edges of your ribbon and glue together (hot glue works perfect for this!) 2. Adhere the ribbon petals to a cardstock circle in a round about fashion until the base of the circle is covered. Complete two more layers by gluing petals on top of the base petals, with each layer using less petals. 3. For a bit of whimsy, I decided to forgo the center layer in grosgrain and instead cut five one inch pieces of the burlap and slightly frayed on end. 4. I glued these to the center of the ribbon also in a round about fashion and topped the true center with a large button threaded with burlap string.

To make the flower function as a clip, I simply hot glued an office binder clip to the back of the cardstock. Other alternatives for this flower would be to use a felt circle base instead of cardstock, and adhere an elastic band (large or small) to create a cute hair holder or headband. What a cute gift this makes, don't you think?!

You can find more details about the May Arts Design Team blog here. Please see my other posts showcasing May Arts Ribbon, they can be seen here, here and here!

Also, May Arts has teamed up with Core'dinations cardstock! I made a paper corsage, and you have the opportunity to win product from both fabulous companies by just leaving a comment!

I'd really love to know what you think of my flower clip and tutorial in general, and I so very much appreciate your comments!