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It’s Day 3 of Yuki’s Nursery Tour!  Sorry this post is later than I hoped because not only is Yuki sick, but she got me sick too!!  Last night I went to sleep BEFORE Yuki and only woke up today because she was up and Hideko had left for work.  I slept for over 12 hours but I feel like I could have slept forever.

Anyways, continuing on with Yuki’s Nursery Tour, I’ve got more pictures, projects and a tutorial.  These are the only photos I could find of the whole room.

We used a lot of colors for her room, but the main colors were yellow, orange, gray and a splash of turquoise.  One of the first things I made was a bunting using a variety of yellow, orange and gray fabrics and sewed them to a gray ribbon.  I really love it and actually took them down to use at her birthday party (6 months ago) but never bothered to put them back up 😦

Another big project for the room was reupholstering this rocker.  It was a hand-me-down from Hideko’s sister and we love it so much (and still use it!), but the original cushion covers were not really my style (yes, that’s putting it lightly ;)).  I was really proud of how it came out.  And then I saw a photo of a friend’s reupholstered rocker and they had repainted the frame too!  Why didn’t I think of that!?  Oh well, maybe that’ll be one of my nesting projects before baby #2 comes along.

For today’s project, I’m going to show you how I made these fabric punched flower branches.

The flowers are made out of fabric that’s been made stiff with fabric stiffener and then punched out with flower punches.  Sounds easy right??  Well IT IS!

Here’s what you need:
Scraps of fabric
Fabric stiffener
Paint brush
Craft punches (in flower shapes)
Awl, ice pick or other pointy object
Artificial flower stamens (I’m not sure what they’re really called, but you can see a pictures below)
Hot glue gun
Fallen branches
Vase
Yellow (or other color) permanent marker (optional)

Take your fabric and apply the stiffener following the directions on the bottle.  I like to use wax paper on a cookie sheet to lay the fabric out on.  I usually apply a few coats to make it nice and thick but not unbendable.  Let it dry completely.  I didn’t have time to label these photos, but you can see the regular fabric on the left, the fabric stiffener and brush in the middle, and two sheets of already stiffened and dried fabric.

Here are the two sheets of stiffened fabric up close.  They are pretty hard, like cardstock, and you can bend them a bit to give them shape, but they don’t crease like paper.

Now take your stiff fabric and punch out a bunch of flowers!  I used cherry blossoms here, but you can use any shape flower.  In fact, if you don’t have any flower craft punches, you can just freehand cut some out.

The white ones on the right are Martha Stewart and the cherry blossom punches on the left are Carl brand.

Fun!!!  Because the fabric is thick and stiff, these suckers were pretty tough to punch out.  I recommend putting the punch on a flat hard surface, like your desk, placing your fabric in the punch and then using your palm and your body weight to push down into the desk.  Yeah, it can hurt after awhile.

Use your awl to create a small hole in the center.  You’ll need to make it a bit wider than in this picture to fit the stamens in.  Press gently or else you’ll tear the fabric.

These are the stamen.  I bought them at Michael’s I think, but you can find them at most craft or hobby stores.  This is optional, but I took a yellow permanent marker and colored in the bulb of the stamens to give them some color.  You can probably also buy colorful ones, but these are the only ones I could find.

Cut them in half (the stamens come with two on each end of a string) and pull them through the center of the flower.  Decide how many you want.  I used between 2-4 depending on the size of the flower.

If you want you can bend the flower petals up a bit to give them more depth.  Now trim the ends of the stamens in the back, apply a generous amount of hot glue and stick it on to your branches.  The glue is going to hold the stamens in place and adhere the flower to the branch.  I found that placing the flowers in the nook where one branch splits into two was a good place for it.  Here is what it looks like from the back.

Not super pretty, but not too noticeable either.  But knowing that there was going to be a back, I put all my flowers facing the same way and put the back side up against the wall.  If I wanted the branches to be pretty from all angles, I’d probably place two flowers back to back to cover up all the glue.

I did simple one-color, one-layered flowers, but if I were to do it again, I’d probably play around with layering flowers that are different sizes and/or different shades.

And looking at these, I realize that they don’t just have to be home decor, but these would make awfully cute hair accessories too!  In fact, I’m going to glue these extra ones to pins right now!

Thanks for stopping by!  I’ve got a bit more to show you from Yuki’s nursery later this week, including other DIY projects, some fun finds and another tutorial.  Hope you’re all staying warm and healthy!