Love, Ramsey: Catchin' the Trend: Flower Hairpiece

Ok, so is anyone else an American Idol ~~addict~~ watcher??? I am sad to say that AI takes up three nights of my life per week, but hey, when I get home from class after being gone from 7:30 to 7:30 all I really want to do is veg out...lazy, I know. Anyways, if you've been tunin' in, you'll have noticed that the IN item this year is hairpieces...ruffly, flowery hairpieces. So I decided to add a little feminine fun to my wardrobe (which generally consists of jeans, fitted tees and sweaters...every day...you know its bad when your folding your laundry and all you see is sweats, jeans and tee-shirts and wonder where all your cute stuff is). Back from my tangent, here is a tutorial for a cute vintage flower piece that only takes about 15 minutes.

Here's what I started with. My aunt gave me like 4 bags of this lovely white lace from her sewing stash. Problem being, I don't like white lace...at all.

ENTER: tea bags. After a short bath in tea, the lace was the perfect vintage look for my new flower. (see first pic, I forgot to photograph this part!)

Okay now, so take your fabric, whatever kind, print, or style your heart desires and cut two long strips, I would say about 2 feet (the longer, the crinklier the flower) and a few inches wide. The width determines how big the flower will be, so adjust accordingly. One strip should be narrower than the other by about 1/2 inch to an inch. You could add more layers if you want your flower to be more ruffly. Pin the strips together and hand sew a basting stitch down the bottom of the strips (the part where the pins are). Don't worry if it isn't perfect, noone will see.

Now, scrunch up your fabric as shown by pulling your thread.

Finish off the pinwheel shape by stitching the two ends of your fabric together.

Cut a square of fabric to fit the back of the flower. (mine was about 2in x 2 in). Fold under the edges of the square to make it look finished and hot glue to the back of the flower, only using glue in the corners. You want to be able to slide your bobby pins or headband under this pocket.

Embellish away! I just took my faux vintage lace and used my old buddy, the glue gun, who was o so happy to come out of storage, to glue the lace in the center by spiraling it around the middle point. I also added a few buttons in a dark gray color to really set it off. If you have an old brooch, that would look great too.