Tutorial: Loom Flowers (without the loom!)

So, a while ago, I fell in love with loom flowers. They are such a cute accent, and you can use ribbon, raffia and all types of yarn and string to make them. I love them layered with other flowers to make accent pieces that can go in hair, on sweaters, on purses, anywhere you can clip them (Aubrey and I share and we have a ton of these things, we both love them!).

A few weeks ago, we had Recognition Night for Activity Days (this is a basically like Cub Scouts for girls at our church). I'm an assistant leader and our theme was DOTS which stands for Depend on the Savior. It was totally cute, with a dot garland, dot cupcakes and dot everything. We wanted to do something fun the girls could wear to remember the night, so I came up with these bows:

I wound a bunch of loom flowers, had some of my scrapbook flowers and buttons, and a the large polka dot flower I sewed. The girls got to layer them, then I helped them hot glue it all together and add a clip. They turned out so cute and the girls picked great color combinations! I was seriously impressed with their creativity and taste. My pink and green was sort of boring compared to the teals and oranges, or blues and purples.

Anyway, I have some looms that I bought off Etsy that work really well, but my kids broke off some of the prongs from the size I needed, so I had to improvise. One of the looms I bought (notice the circle inside the circle, also something you can do with my improvised method):

First, you need a piece of styrofoam. You could also potentially drill holes into a piece of wood for a more permentant loom, but the stryofoam works great, since you can pick any size (from about 1" to 5") and number of loops.

First, I used a cup in the right size to make my circle. I actually found this particular cup really useful, since I used the lines to space the nails. You don't have to be exact on this, which is another nice thing. The flowers are pretty forgiving. I pressed the nails fairly far into the styrofoam, and angled them just slightly toward the cup.

Ok, once you have your circle made, it's time to start winding. I secured the end with a pin. Then wind around the nails, going across the circle. I've numbered the nails in this photo so you can get an idea:

 

Wind loosely, not pulling on the nails, but using them as a guide. Once you get going, it will look like this:

Keep going until you've gone around at least three times. I choose to do five rounds for this flower. You can check to make sure they are all even by counting the loops on each nail.

Cut your yarn, leaving at least 18" tail. Thread this on a needle. Pulling it across the flower, as if to make another loop, place the needle under all the yarn loops on that nail.

Pull taut. Go around the opposite side of the loop, down underneath two of the loops, then pull up through the top. This will secure a loop around each "petal."  Repeat this step until each petal is secure. You can also do this step in a contrasting color or with a different type of material (thin ribbon, raffia, etc) for a very cool effect.

 

Once that is finished, stick the needle into the middle.

If you have more flowers to wind, gently pull the petals off the nails, leaving them behind. If you are done, pull the nails out of the styrofoam.

Pull the tail through the middle to the back. Gentle tie the ends together (don't pull to hard or the loops will pull through) in a square knot. Trim ends.

 Finished flower:

Another view of the finished flower and the bow:

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Tutorial: Yarn Pom Pom Creatures

Sorry I was MIA last week. I have depression, and it catches up to every once in a while. I usual am able to work through it, but last week was bad. I'm pretending I had the flu. :)

Anyway, I'm feeling much better today and so I've got this cute tutorial for ya. We finished reading the first Harry Potter with the boys, and we promised them a Harry Potter party when we finished. One thing I wanted to do was make owls with them. This is a great way to use up some leftover yarn and my boys had a blast winding their owls. We used this tutorial, which is adorable. It worked well, but I have a slightly modified version that is simpler and faster, although not quite as professional.

Here are the boys' owls. Maxton's (the middle owl) has longer feet and that is why he is looking up. Maybe he's just more interested in astronomy than the other two.First off, you need a rectangle of cardboard with a slit cut in it (mine is about 2.5" wide, which means my finished pom pom will be about 5" tall), a small zip tie and some leftover yarn.Take the base color yarn (in this case, green), insert the end into the slit to hold it and start winding. The thicker you wind, the more strands you will have and the fuller your pom pom will be. I wound mine about 1 inch thick. Make sure not to go too wide or it won't be easy to gather.If you want a 2nd color for the belly or some hair, wind the 2nd color over the first.
Wiggle your zip tie underneath the yarn next to the cardboard. You can use heavy duty string, but I think zip ties are faster, more sturdy and easier to get tight.Close your zip tie as tight as you can.
Trim off the end of your zip tie. Turn your cardboard over and using a pair of sewing scissors, cut down the center.Once you've cut through all the strands, it will look something like this:Trim up so that your strands are more or less even.Add embellishments with hot glue. For this monster, I used a pipe cleaner with a paper flower and metal rimmed tags and large brads.This is my little owl. He looks so dejected that even Aubrey noticed and asked me, "Owl sad?" Maxton can't decide if he's more tired or sad. I like him--I can relate. I want to snuggle him, take him out to dinner and movie, and cheer him up.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Small update on us

That's the craft I did for Xander's kindy class last Friday. They loved it. I cut only 8 pink ones. That was not good. They were all gone by the second round. Pink is very popular with 5 and 6 year old girls. I love those huge paper clips. I got them from Walmart.

Maxton also had his birthday. I ended up not making his cake. I'm a bit burned out and I didn't want to resent having to make a cake. He was pretty stoked about this Costco cake with dinosaur toys on the top. So, it worked out well. Here he is gazing adoringly at 5 pounds of chocolate:


He also loved his presents! He has such good reactions. He got binoculars, a Power ranger, Kung Fu Panda, and shoes from our family. He got a yellow Power Ranger from Melissa's family and from Grandma and Grandpa he's getting a quilt. He's wanted one from Grandma for a long time and he is super excited.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.