Dahlia

Last week I found this awesome tutorial on Holidash for making a dahlia, which is one of my favorite flowers.  Something about the shape and curves in the flower, make it so beautiful.   The tutorial on Holidash is a Mother's Day pin and is really beautiful.  So, I decided to try a version for myself.

This is my beautiful Model / Daughter, Mia!

I had to bribe Mia with a tea party to get her to model for me.  She loves hot tea.  You may notice that her dress doesn't exactly match the beautiful hair accessory I made for her.  She is currently dressed (in a Repunzel dress) for the ball that will ensue when her daddy gets home.  

There are not many supplies needed for this project.  I made paper templates in three different sizes. I was not precise with mine, but the Holidash tutorial says that they made the petals 1.5 inch, 1.25 inch and 1 inch.  You also need a sheet of felt, a glue gun and glue sticks, scissors and pinking shears.

  

The first thing I did was cut out all of the petals.  I pinned the paper template to the felt and cut each of them out.

I cut out 12 large ones, 10 medium ones and 10 small ones.  

Once they are all cut, I put a line of hot glue along the flat edge of the petal.  Then fold the sides to the center.

This takes a little time, but eventually all of them are done.  In the original tutorial they used fabric glue and placed a pot on top of the folded petals until they dried.  Personally, I don't have the patience to wait for glue to dry, so I used hot glue.  I found that if I just used a small amount and held it down for a few seconds using my fingernails that I didn't burn my fingers at all.   There is a bit of glue that squeezed out, but those portions will be covered up in the finished flower.

The next step is to cut out a 3 inch felt circle using scissors.  Then a 2 inch felt circle using pinking shears.  The final thing that you need to cut is a .50 inch x 4 inch strip of felt, cutting one side with pinking shears.

Roll the strip of felt and set aside.  Begin constructing the flower, but gluing the largest petals along the outside of the scissor cut 3 inch circle.

Continue gluing petals until they are all the way around the circle. 

Then begin the next row toward the center using the medium sized petals. 

After placing the third row using the smallest petals, put a drop of glue in the middle of the flower.  Place the circle cut with the pinking shears over the center of the flower and push it down into the middle of the flower.  Finally glue the rolled felt piece into the middle of the flower.  This will cover any exposed glue and hide the construction of the flower.  

My final step was to glue a clippie covered with velvet ribbon on the back.  

Here are some more shots of my completed flower and my beautiful model.

I have made two of these flowers now, one for practice and one for the tutorial.  I can't wait to experiment with the other things I can use them for.

The parties that I am linking this project to are on my side bar.