Fabulous(ly) Easy Flower Purses

Our Beary Scrappy Gals have shown you a whole garden full of flower ideas this week and we are loving the flowers you are contributing to our challenge as well-- keep them coming! Like Susan, I turned to some fabric this week to make my own flowers to embellish these cute notepad purses. Follow my instructions below to make a quick and easy gift to make for moms, teachers, friends or even just for yourself!

Supplies Needed:

1 small legal notepad

2 pieces coordinating patterned paper

24 inches matching ribbon (1/2 inch wide)

Self adhesive velcro

Glue stick

Glue dots

distress ink

Large paper cutter (if all else fails, just measure and cut carefully with scissors)

Circle punch and cardstock scraps

Fabric strip, about 1 1/2 inches wide, 18-20 inches long

Glue gun

Brads, jewels, or buttons for embellishments

The Notebook:
1. Begin with a small size legal pad-- I trimmed mine to 6 inches long by cutting it on a large paper cutter, the kind they have at schools. I first cut the cardboard back of the notebook and then cut the pages a few at a time, cutting some from the back and some from the front until I made it all the way through the notebook. This takes a little patience, don't get in a hurry and try to cut through too many pages at once (yes, I did this! It doesn't work very well).

2. Use two pieces of coordinating paper (I used Basic Grey's Origins line-- I mentioned last week how much I love, love, love this paper!), cut one piece that is 12 inches long and 5 1/4 inches wide (since the notebook is 5 inches wide) and one piece that is 3 1/2 inches long by 5 1/4 inches wide. On the second smaller piece, use a plate or bowl and trace part of the circle onto one end of the paper and the trim around it, creating a piece that looks like the flap of a purse. I machine stitched around this piece to give it more detail and then inked around the edges with Tim Holtz Distressing Ink in Vintage Photo.

3. Lay out the second, larger piece of paper right side down and place your desired ribbon about 1 1/2 inches down from the top. Then apply a thick layer of glue stick to the back of the notepad and adhere it to the paper, right over the top of the ribbon and leaving about 1 1/4 inches of the paper sticking out above the top of the notepad.

4. Fold down the remaining 1 1/4 inch of the paper over the top of the notepad, creasing firmly and then applying glue. Fold the bottom of the paper up over the bottom of the notepad, also creasing firmly.

5. Use glue dots to attach the curved flap to the top of the notepad.

6. Attach self adhesive Velcro to the underside of the top flap and the front side of the bottom flap, making sure they will line up and close the purse.

7. Ink around the bottom edges of the purse and then tie your ribbon at the top. The purse is finished, now for the flower!

Easy Fabric Flowers:

1. Begin by punching a circle of scrap cardstock (my circle is 1 1/4 inches, it depends on how big you want to make your flower). Put a large circle of hot glue in the middle-- be careful! I have the blister to prove that this part if tricky (Susan and I must be gluttons for punishment as we were both playing with heat this week!) Fold your scrap of fabric in half, hold it tightly and place one end of it into the hot glue.

2. Twist the fabric around, sticking it into the hot glue and turning it as you go so that alternating edges are facing up. Add more glue as you move outward toward the edges of the circle and continue to twist and turn the fabric as you go to give dimension.

3. Continue twisting and glueing clear out to the very edges of the cardstock circle, even allowing a bit of the fabric to overhang, then glue the end of the fabric onto the backside of the circle or trim it off if necessary.

4. You should now have a flower that looks somewhat like this-- don't worry if it's not perfect, no real flowers are. And it takes a little practice to get it just how you want so make a few and you'll have the hang of it!

5. Embellish the centers of your flowers with brads, buttons, jewels or anything else you can think of! I used the Stitched Brads from the Origins line.

***Note-- the three flowers in this picture are all slightly different-- the top flower was twisted during the entire process, giving some frayed edges and some straight edges. the bottom left flower has only straight, finished edges-- I folded this strip of fabric in half and ironed it before glueing then made sure only the finished edges ended facing up. The third, bottom right flower has only frayed edges, I folded this strip so both edges faced up and made sure they were glued that way. Each way gives a slightly different look-- play around with your fabrics and use different types to see what kind of finishes you can come up with.

After completing your flowers, attach them to the front flap of your purse, slightly overhanging the edge. If you don't have time to try the fabric flowers, use any type of flower you have in your stash-- they all look great!

Don't forget to enter our May Flowers challenge this week-- create a new project with flowers on it and leave us a link to check it out. The lucky winner gets a $20 gift certificate from The Beary Scrap and nothing beats free scrapbook goodies! Good luck and make sure to check back tomorrow for some more May Flowers.