Rolled Flower Tutorial... with a twist.

I'm making some flowers for a swap on the Crafting Passionz Forum. One of the last before the Forum closes down. All is not lost as a new group has started up to replace it. If you are interested in joining us, you can find us at Scrappers Obsessionz - a forum for New Zealand and Aussie scrappers.


I'm making some rolled flowers with a bit of a twist for one of my two flowers for the swap so thought I would share with you how I made them.


Ingredients:

• Material - I've used Japanese Metallic Lame as it was cheap at Spotlight and the theme for the swap is "Moulin Rouge"
• Double sided adhesive sheets
• Cardstock or cardboard - I used cardboard I recycled from cup-of soup boxes and the like
• Black cotton - or whatever contrasts with the material you have used
• Black beads (or contrasting colour)
• Large black (contrasting colour) rhinestone

Methodology:

• Draw then cut a circle from your sheet of double sided adhesive. I cut my circles 3" in diameter using my Fiskars circle template as a guide.
• Remove one side of the protective backing paper and adhere the circle of double sided adhesive onto the cardboard. Don't remove the other backing paper yet.

• Cut around the adhesive circle. This method is much easier than trying to align a circle of adhesive to a circle of cardboard. This way they are guaranteed to match.

• Cut a stripe of material about an inch wide. I found that this was a good width to work with and I only needed one strip to complete the entire circle. You don't need to measure exactly... eye balling is near enough.

• Remove the remaining backing paper from the adhesive circle. From this point it gets a bit tricky and a bit fiddly depending upon how sticky your double sided adhesive is.
• Fold your material strip in half width-wise so you are working with a strip about 1/2 inch wide. Twist the end once or twice for your starting point right in the centre of the circle.

• The method is then to keep twisting in the same direction and sticking the strip down in a spiral working your way outwards from the centre of the circle. Try to keep the strips close enough together that you don't end up with gaps of adhesive showing between the material spiral. Continue doing this until you have used up all the material or your circle is completely covered, whichever happens first. I find that your bits between the twists should naturally get longer the further from the centre of the circle that you get.

• On the final row around the outer edge make sure that you cover any remaining patches of double sided adhesive. It doesn't matter if the final row of "petals" lies beyond the actual edge of the cardboard as this will be covered. It's more important to make sure there are no uncovered patches of adhesive.

• Finish off the tail of material by tucking it underneath the flower and adhering down with sellotape. It will be hidden on your layout so it doesn't need to look pretty... just be functional.

• Adhere the rhinestone in the middle of the fabric circle.
• Thread the needle with a single thread of cotton. Knot both ends together to give you two threads. Push the needle underneath the rhinestone from one side to the other. 
• Thread six beads onto the needle and slide these down to the fabric base. Encircle the last bead with the needle then push the needle back through the other five beads under the rhinestone and back out diagonally opposite.
• Repeat this until you have eight stamens evenly around the rhinestone. Tie off the thread so it won't unravel. 

I've made four different colours for the "Moulin Rouge" flower swap. I love them all. I really like the way the fabric has a "distressed" look as well with the loose threads and fringey edge.