How To Make Fabric Flowers From Old Bed Sheets

Upcycling to me is all about turning the old and unloved into something more beautiful. One of my favourite things to make is faux flowers from repurposed rubbish. In the past, I’ve made beautiful map roses, a denim flower bouquet and sweater felt flowers. This time I show you how to make fabric flowers from old bedsheets.

Spring has finally arrived and to get into the seasonal mood I’ve decorated my house with flowers. I do love real flowers, well for about a week before they start dying and the water stinks.

The beauty of these upcycled fabric flowers is that they will last forever and require only occasional dusting. Also, there is no stinky flower water to deal with.

But don’t ask me what kind of flowers they are. They are a made up upcycled flower.

Upcycling Bed Sheets Into Gorgeous DIY Fabric Flowers

With this upcycle I managed to get the sharpies out once again. I love playing with sharpies, I have quite a collection as my eldest son buys me a pack every birthday.

As I was so obviously delighted with them the first time I received them, my son decided he was on to a winner so that’s it now sharpies every year! I desperately need to think of more sharpie crafts, as they are beginning to stockpile.

These flowers were made in an afternoon with an old bed sheet and some floristry wire. They cost very little to make. I made some pink watercolour flowers and left some au naturale but you can make them any sharpie colour that you want.

I also have made some fabulous fabric mushroom art out of old bedsheets that can be also seen on Pillarboxblue.

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What You Need

• An old bed sheet or any other cotton close weaved light fabric.
• Craft wire about 0.5mm thick – This comes in lots of different colours, I used pink for these flowers but I’ve also used silver in the past.
• Floral wire stems approx 22 guage
• Green florists tape
• Tacky glue
• Sharpies in various colours
• Isopropyl alcohol spray (rubbing alcohol)

How To Make Fabric Flowers

1.. First, cut a random piece of fabric from your bedsheet about 2ft square, and iron it flat.

2. Next, cut several lengths of the craft wire about 30cm in length. Baring in mind 6 pieces of wire are needed for each flower.

Make a frame for each petal by twisting each piece of wire into a long petal shape with a small stem.

3. Cover one side of the wire petal frame with a generous amount of tacky glue. Then stick the round part of petals down onto the ironed sheet. Make sure the wireframe lies flat on the sheet.

Top Tip: You can lay something heavy on top of the wires whilst the glue dries to make sure they stick to the bedsheet.

4. Next, after the glue is dried, carefully cut out each petal from the sheet.

This was my favourite part of this craft. Some of the petals I left au naturale, the others I watercolour dyed with sharpies.

Using a selection of pink, red and purple sharpies colour in a fabric petal. Don’t worry about them looking messy at this stage.

6. Then, spray the coloured petals with rubbing alcohol, that’s when the magic happens. The alcohol makes the inks run into one another, creating a watercolour effect.

7. Next, gently squeeze and bend the wire petals into more of a flower shape.

8. Next, cover the wire floral stem with green floristry wire and then attach one petal to the wire by wrapping around the wire end around the stem.

Repeat with the remaining 5 petals, adding them one at a time and spacing them around the stem.

When all the petals are attached cover the stem with green tape, to hide the wires. It is easy to shape your flower by gently bending the petals.

When I started this craft the plan was to sharpie watercolour all the petals. However, I loved the look of the white petals too so I left half of them as they were.

I do think that both the pink and white flowers do look good together.

These fabric flowers would look fabulous in the hand-painted glass bud vases I made. Or even better in this upcycled denim hanging mason jar vase.

I also love to make faux flowers out of thick Italian crepe paper, I have several posts where I have made these flowers. Such as my gorgeous giant Boho flowers vase and the large faux flower pineapple wall decor. I even have some wonderful doodle flower crafts.

Upcycled felt is also a great fabric to use when making faux flowers, I’ve used these felt flowers for a fun Frida Kahlo Pillow and have even made a whole repurposed faux felt succulent garden. Or you can even use yarn to make some pom-pom flowers.

I’ve even made DIY fabric sunflowers from old jeans before.

You can find more cool things to make with fabric scraps here.