Fabric Flower Corsages and Boutonnieres

Here's the skinny on how to make corsages and boutonnieres from fabric flowers. I made about 50 flowers for the wedding from three different types of fabric in three different patterns: purple crepe back satin, purple polka dot chiffon, white polka dot satin. My bouquet used 18 of them, and the rest went into these.

What you need:
-fabric flowers - I made mine using the tutorial here

-glue gun with glue sticks

-spare fabric with some weight, or some felt - I used extra crepe back satin for both projects

-thin elastic

-thin ribbon

-pin backs for the boutonnieres

I also made leaves to go behind the flowers in the boutonnieres. I think they add a nice touch that makes it more than just a flower. These are just rectangular pieces of fabric gathered and glued on one end for dimension, and cut into a tapered leaf shape on the other.

Take your fabric flower, glue the leaf to the back. Take your pin, open it up, and, using hot glue, glue it so that the pin is straight across and the leaf is in the lower left hand corner. Take a small rectangle of fabric and hot glue it over the pin back so that the pin back is sandwiched between the flower and the fabric. The pin itself should be up and out of the way so it doesn't get glued.

Once the glue is dry, you can close the pin. You can skip the extra fabric step, but I think it gives the flower more stability, and makes it less likely that the pin will pop off the back.

For the ladies' corsages, I used one of each flower to give them a fuller look. I didn't like the idea of the girls carrying mini bouquets, so this was a nice compromise. 

First step is to take the backing piece of fabric and cut two slits in it. Cut a piece of elastic approximately 8" long, and a piece of ribbon approximately 20" long. Feed both pieces through the slits in the fabric.

Take the three flowers in one hand, pushing the petals up so that you are only gluing the centers to the corsage base.

With the flowers in one hand, put glue on the base of the corsage, making sure to get glue on the ribbon and elastic. When you set the flowers on the base, you want to make sure it's centered.

Once the glue is cooled, trim the excess fabric.

The elastic is left loose to be tied to each individual's wrist. Once tied, the spare elastic can be trimmed. The ribbon can add to the look of the ceremony, then be used to turn the flowers into a headband after the wedding!