How To Make a Burlap Flower Bouquet
March 12, 2012 in Made by Mom
This post has been featured!
I am currently a participant in the Crafterbowl — hosted by Amie at Pinkapotomus. Each week two “players” face off in a secret ingredient challenge and the “Fans” vote for their favorite crafter. When Amie emailed me Saturday with the Secret Ingredient…BURLAP…I knew just where I wanted to invest my time and efforts. A New Spring Centerpiece for my Kitchen Table.
You see, my hubby got me this cool tulip centerpiece. It wasn’t for Valentine’s Day or because he was in the doghouse. “Just because” flowers…the best kind 
Plus they were yellow (my favorite color). Yellow TULIPS (my favorite flower). He done good.
Unfortunately, they have already run their course for the year, wilted, and died. So I packed up the bulbs to plant in the fall…and waited for inspiration to strike. So, the vase sat empty for a few weeks:
I was hoping to put together something that looked a bit like this fabulous centerpiece my friend Abbie made last Christmas (but with a springtime twist):
Since I only had a small amount of burlap in my stash when I heard that it was to be the “secret ingredient” for my project, I had to make a run to JoAnns to grab a bit more. In addition to THREE colors of burlap, I picked up some yellow paint, yellow ribbon, and a yellow floral accent bush. I also found the perfect glass vase to fit inside the larger one I already had for $1. Gotta love that (I also picked up some wire floral stems…but they didn’t make it into the picture). Later, I went back for some thicker wire stems, some green floral foam, and lemon drops (had to go to three stores to find Old-Fashioned Lemon Drops instead of Lemon Heads…)
Add in several sticks of hot glue and a few buttons…and this is what I came up with:
A sunshine-y pot of flowers that won’t wilt and die!
A welcome addition to our table.
Don’t ya think?
Here is how you can make your own Burlap Roses:
1. Cut a two-inch strip down the entire width of the burlap (it will be about 45 inches long). While burlap has a very noticeable grain, I intentionally chose NOT to follow it, and recommend that you do the same. This affects the way that it will fray. 
2. Wrap it around the tip of the wire step and secure it with hot glue.
3. Wrap and glue it several time until it looks something like this:
4. (At this point in the tutorial, I felt it would be easier to understand if we took the pictures from over my shoulder…so notice the changed point of view). Fold the strip backwards.
5. Pinch it in toward the stem…this is your first petal.
6. Make another fold and pinch it in as you slightly turn the stem clockwise.
7. Secure these petals with a few daps of glue.
8. Fold another petal…
9. …and another. Continue to turn your stem clockwise as you fold more petals. 
10. Every couple of petals, add a dot of glue to hold them together. 
11. Continue folding and glueing and glueing and folding.
12. Remember to continue turning your stem clockwise so that each new petal you fold is off-set from the last one.
13. Stop adding petals when you have 6-8 inches left of your burlap strip.
14. Wrap the remaining strip around the base of the rose counterclockwise. Add hot glue where necessary.
15. Attach the end of the burlap so that the edge appears as one last petal, or fold it back one last time ans secure it with hot glue.
16. It will looks something like this:
17. If you need more help…check out this wonderful video tutorial by La Belle Bride.
18. Make more. I made seven for my bouquet.
Here is how you can make your own Burlap Sunburst Carnations:
1. Use puffy paint to draw a bunch of flowers all over your burlap. Don’t worry too much about these…it is good if they are uneven and inconsistent. Because I was not sure how these were going to work out (at first I thought I’d be overlapping flowers of decreasing size), I made several sizes. I ended up using a bunch of flowers of the same size: the ones that were 3 1/2 inches in diameter were my favorite.
2. When the paint has dried, cut out around your flowers. Again, do not worry about being too perfect on this. You WANT a messy cut that leaves burlap to unfray around the outside of your outline.
3. Fold the flowers in half with the right sides together and thread your wire through the center.
4. Thread 8 flowers on your wire like this:
5. Fold the ends around to meet up. 
6. Push all the flowers together in the middle.
7. Twist the wires together to hold the flowers in a tight bunch.
8. That is all there is to it. 
Make more. I made 5 of these for my bouquet.
Here is how you make Your Own Button-Eyed Daisy:
1. Cut a strip that is about half the width of the burlap (22 inches long) and a little under 1 inch wide. While I advised above that you not cut on the grain for the strips for your roses, this time I DO recommend that you follow the grain. Cut straight along one of the thread lines, and then again about 10 threads over.
2. Thread the wire stem through your button holes. If it has four holes, it will look like this on the top:
3. …and this on the bottom:
4. Now you have a stem two wires wide with a button on the end and a straight strip of burlap.
5. Thread your stem through the burlap about one inch from the raw edge of the burlap strip.
6. Measure over about 2.5 inches from the button and thread your wire through to make a loop.
7. Again measure over about 2.5 inches from the button and thread your wire through to make another loop.
8. Make sure you insert your wire on the same side of the burlap strip that it just came out of so the loops lie flat.
9. Continue steps 6 and 7, making loops at 2.5 inch intervals until you reach the end of your burlap strip.
10. Held loosely, it should look something like this:
11. Slide the petals tight to the button and spread them into a circle. Secure flower on the back with a dot of hot glue.
12. Grab a few of the threads on the outside of each strip. Some of these may have naturally loosened as you made the flower.
13. Wrap these loose threads around the button and secure them in the back with a dab of glue.
14. Make more. I made six of these for my bouquet.
To make my arrangement, I put my smaller vase inside the big one and filled the space in between the vases with lemon drops. I put some dry green floral foam in the middle vase to help hold the flowers in place. I find it helpful when arranging flowers to start with a bush, filler flower, or greenery…in this case those little yellow sprigs. Then I insert all of one kind of flower (i.e. the roses), then another (i.e. the carnations), then another (i.e. the daisies).
A few more things:
1.These flowers are quite heavy and I had to reinforce my wire stems with additional ones. When I do this again, I will opt for a heavier gauge wire in the first place.
2. Some people get manicures before they “model” their hands. Others wrap their fingers in masking tape and sear hot glue to their fingertips. I fall in the later category.
3. Hot glue melts band-aids…hence the need for masking tape over existing wounds.
4. You’ll notice in the supplies photo that I got yellow ribbon, too. I made a rose with it using the same method as the burlap roses. It turned out cute…but didn’t fit right with this bouquet.
This button can now be found on my portfolio page:
-:-
I’m linking up to these fun blog parties:
My entry into Strut your Stuff sponsored by Appliances Online and the Bosch Washing Machines
Related posts:
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Alisha
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Wow. I absolutely love this. Great use of lemon drops and the three different kinds of flowers play well off each other. Well done.
OUTSTANDING! I hope you win.
This is fabulous! Your instructions are wonderful! All three of them are cute as cute, but I think those daises are super sweet
So glad to have found your blog! Good luck!
These are adorable…so full of rustic charm-Love it! stoppying by from the Southern Institute Linky…:)
http://imprintalish.blogspot.com/2012/03/spring-mantel.html
This is SO beautiful! So creative, and you did a great job with it! Just lovely!
These are absolutely gorgeous. Well worth all of the hard work. My fave is the one with the button centre. And the yellow candies as filler – love it!!
Great tutorial!! Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for the tutorial, I love these flowers! Stopping by from Made by you Monday.
You are so creative! These are beautiful…Thanks so much for sharing at Mix it up Monday
Oh my, these are gorgeous! You could use this year round by changing the filler and the vase filler.
Your burlap flowers are fantastic!
Dee
Southern Scraps –
GREAT idea…I may just have to do that…acorns in the fall, cranberries for Christmas. Lemon Drops work for spring/summer…but pastel Jelly beans would be good for spring, too.
Alisha
What a neat idea, very unique! Thank you for sharing!
Those are Beautiful!!! Wow! Love burlap! Want to try these but I’m sure they will look nothing like yours! Found you on A Glimpe Inside linky party!
This is just beautiful!! Thank you so much for linking up this week to Fantabulous Friday @ Little Becky Homecky!!
Wow1 These are gorgeous! Very professional looking and I know so many people who would love these on their table!
Oh wow! That turned out too cute! I’m loving the pops of yellow! Thank you for sharing your flower tutorials!
I featured this today! it’s fantastic! http://www.kimboscrafts.blogspot.com/2012/04/shout-outs.html
Seriously.. These are SO pretty!!
I have a girl friend who absolutely loathes taking care of flowers after she receives them, these would definitely be a great housewarming gift for her or for those with severe floral allergies! I, personally, love the pop of the yellow paint outline on the brown burlap, great job. Thanks for the step-by-step!
this is beautiful!! i LOVE it!
Thank you som much!!!
Beautiful flowers, great idea.
[...] continuing the burlap idea, I found a great tutorial for making burlap flowers on Snug As A Bug Baby. This isn’t a wedding post, but you can easily use the tutorial to create burlap flowers to [...]
I absolutely love this bouquet! Although they’re probably very simple to make, I couldn’t wrap my mind around your instructions. Maybe you could just send me a bouquet! lol
Just love these flowers, can’t wait to make my own. Fabulous! Fit in with the country theme in my kitchen.
really pretty and creative! I’m of doing this in the fall with orange and candy corn!
I love these flowers! They are super cute. Thank you for the tutorial; I’m going to attempt to make some of these for my wedding flowers! I was wondering, what gauge did you use for the floral wire? Again, super cute flowers that will work year round! Best of luck – hope you win!
Sarah,
I cannot remember what gauge wire I used, actually…but it was too thin. These flowers are really quite heavy and I would recommend getting the highest gauge wire sold in floral stems.
-Alisha
My daughter just sent me this link. I have 150 yards of burlap that we are using to decorate for her wedding… I guess I better get started! Making burlap flowers wasn’t on the list… wish me luck, and sanity
We have 24 tables to decorate!
Great tutorial!! Thanks very much!!
Julie –
WOW 150 yds of burlap! Good luck. I’d LOVE LOVE LOVE to see pictures of what you create!!!
-Alisha @ SnugasaBugBaby.com
what a gorgeous bouquet!! i’d love to make some of these and thanks for sharing this wonderful tutorial!
Awesome!
WOW! This was absolutely beautiful. I’ve got to try it and only hope it turns out half that pretty.
Wow, thank you so much for sharing this! These flowers are beautiful and I cannot wait to try to make them
I wonder if this could all be done with felt.
)
Your tutorial is amazing! I love everything about burlap, so I can’t wait to try making a similar arrangement. I do have to ask though, I LOVE your picture of a fork and spoon hanging on the wall in the background. Can you tell me where you got it (or how you made it)? I just voted for you!
I love this and hope I can make them.
[...] one of the crafts I’ve actually made from my Pinterest board!! Here’s the tutorial: Burlap Bouquet Tutorial. I know it looks hard but it’s actually really easy…just make sure to use LOTS of hot [...]
JoAnn,
Thanks
Let me know how your bouquet turns out…
The fork and spoon were a gift from my mother-in-law, and I do not know where they came from before that.
Sorry to be no help whatsoever…
Alisha
Where did you get the white wire? These are awesome!
[...] I followed this tutorial to make all three kinds of roses, but I found the 2nd and 3rd MUCH easier to make than the first (hence, no burlap roses in my wreath yet): http://www.snugasabugbaby.com/how-to-make-a-burlap-flower-bouquet/ [...]
Kelly,
Thanks
The wire can be found in the floral aisle at any craft store. In the future I will use a thicker guage…I recommend getting the thickest/heaviest stuff they have as these burlap flowers are quite heavy.
Alisha
[...] Just Liv (2) You and Mie via Mollie Makes (3) Snug As A Bug baby (4) via A Bushel and a [...]
hey I mentioned you in my blog post here:
http://www.smalltownsmallbudget.blogspot.com/2012/11/mantle-monday-no4-hint-of-greeni-got-t.html
great tutorial!!
JoAnn,
Last time I was at hobby lobby they had oversized silverware
Awesome tutorial. Love your burlap roses!!! Pin Worthy! Happy to be your newest follower! Blessings ~ Judy
Very cute flowers, but what kind of burlap did you use? I found burlap ribbon but it is a loose weave and unravels too easily.
so adorable! i’m a burlap nut~thx for these great ideas!
I love your bouquet and the table cloth. I am planning a baby shower and am going to use your ideas for the center pieces. Where did you get the table cloth? It would make the bouquet match beautifully. Thank you for the idea.