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How To Make Fabric Flowers From Old Bed Sheets

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Upcycling Bed Sheets Into Gorgeous DIY Fabric Flowers

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 and sweater felt flowers. This time I show you how to make fabric flowers from old bed sheets.

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 DIY fabric flowers is that they will last forever and require only an occasional dust and 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.

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. So 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.

How to make fabric flowers from upcycled bed sheets

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How to make fabric flowers: What you need

What you need to make fabric flowers

How to make fabric flowers

First cut a random piece of fabric from your bed sheet 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 is 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.

Make petal frames

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. You can lay something heavy on top of the wires whilst the glue dries to make sure they stick to the bed sheet.

Making fabric wire petals

After the glue is dried, carefully cut out each petal from the sheet.

Bed sheet petal.

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

Gently squeeze and bend the wire petals into more of a flower shape.

Shaping wire fabric petals

Cover the wire floral stem with green florestry wire and then atach one petal to the wire by wrapping round the wire end around the stem. Repeat with the remaining 5 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.

How to make fabric flowers from upcycled bed sheets with sharpie watercolor 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.

Upcycled bed sheet flowers full tutorial
Pink and white wire frame cotton flowers DIY

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

DIY fabric flowers with sharpie watercolor petals

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.

Don’t forget to check out these other DIY flower crafts, beautiful map roses, and DIY sweater felt roses.
 
You can find other fabric flower ideas here too.
 

How to make map roses. Lovely home decoration and great Valentines gift. Flowers that don't wilt and die.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  5. Your fabric flowers look lovely and it’s great that they were a recycled project. The waterfall effect looks great for these flowers. Thanks for sharing at Snickerdoodle. Pinning.

    Reply

  8. They’re lovely Claire — I like both too — the white ones are so simple. But also… THAT gin bottle!!! My eyes definitely lit up when I saw that!!! I’m a sucker for anything gin based — plus I do love a pretty label! #HomeEtc

    Reply

  9. These are just gorgeous, I love both versions.
    Isn’t it funny how the kids will go with something once they know you like it? I can think of much worse things than a stock pile of sharpies! In our house we all share a shopping list app and so I write very specific lists with amazon or argos links for craft gadgets near my birthday and surprise surprise I usually get exactly what I’m after.

    Reply

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