Fun with Organza Flower Clips

Summer is always a great time to play with accessories. Flower Hair Clips have become very popular. You can make them out of anything. Really any sort of cloth or paper. My favorite are Organza. Organza is such a beautiful fabric, so feminine and fun. I took to You tube to watch videos on flowers. And there are a lot. Then went to my local fabric store and bought loads of Organza. A lot of people are using fake flowers from any store to make these. I wanted to make my own.  I wanted to make the flower clips that look like a real petal, which takes FIRE ! You have to heat the petals to get them to look that way. I tried to use a soldering gun, that didn't work. The fabric would catch fire or melt too much. What I found worked best for me was using a candle. It is still a little tricky, but at least you can control the burn pattern somewhat. I used 8-9 layers of petals which I heated individually. I understand some people use a heat gun, I haven't tried this yet, but will try that next.

One thing to keep in mind: Organza isn't cheap. Watch adds for Jo Ann Fabrics for sales or your local fabric store. I found it to average right around 10.00 a yard when not on sale. I tried hot gluing them first. This worked OK. I wasn't totally happy with the outcome, so I tried sewing them. I liked this much better. On the centers, I used a brass filigree piece on most of them and wired beads to the filigree first before attaching it to the flower. After that I used a piece of felt and glued on the alligator clip. I found large quantities of clips at my local beauty supply. And a smooth version I found to hold just as well as the sawed edge type. I used felt to cover the underside of the clip and to give it a nice finished look. These were a lot of fun, but take a little bit of planning. Another difficult part was cutting the organza, not an easy thing to do as it moves and is "slippery" as fabrics go. So, with a little practice they can be cut fairly easy. The layers do not need to be precise which is helpful. You will have to play with this and figure out how it works for you.