In this tutorial I’ll teach you my own method of creating beautiful rounded tsumami kanzashi petals. Not the traditional technique, but one that will make your flowers stand out for sure.
You’re new to the world of tsumami kanzashi and would love to learn how to make the petals out of silk or other fabrics, but you don’t have access to rice glue or perfectly starched and cut tiny squares of silk.
It’s all right, there are other ways to create beautiful flowers out of silk, flowers that will last for many more years than the ones made with rice glue.
I had no idea what I was doing when I started making tsumami kanzashi flowers. I never used the traditional method because of many reasons, the most important of them being a lack of rice glue. So I worked with what I had, a glue gun.
After a lot of trial and error, I came up with this technique that I’ve been using since 2011. It was good then, it’s still good now, for any kind of natural fabric.
I do recommend that you starch the fabric before using it, if it is made of a natural fiber. If it’s synthetic, it’s much easier to just use a candle for the gluing part.
Materials and tools:
- a square piece of fabric,
- a pair of scissors,
- fabric glue – I use hot glue.
Take the fabric square, fold it in two via the diagonal.
Bring one side corner to the center corner.
Bring the second corner down. Do not overlap the two corners.
Fold the petal in two, bringing the two new side corners to the back.
Cut the tip of the petal through all the layers.
Put a bit of hot glue between the exposed layers. Pinch the glue after waiting for 2-3 seconds and remove the excess.
Cut off the hanging threads at the base of the petal, make it all smooth.
If you want to make a cherry blossom, your petal is done. Otherwise, to seal the base, add a bit of hot glue along the base layers on each side and pinch.
Remove excess glue. Your petal is ready to be used!
Congratulations! Now go on and make many more 😀
Video
You can use the round petals in various flowers and insects:
I hope you’ll use this tutorial to create the most beautiful fabric flowers and critters. Please share it with your creative friends and enjoy!
Right now I’m working on translating the tutorials linked above to English, so if you want to know when the next one “leaves the press”, write an email address in the field to the left and tick the “English articles” box in the list. I won’t use your email for anything else, it’s safe with me.
If you want to share your creations with me, leave a comment here, on my facebook page or tweet me @andrea_bede.
Keep up the great work!
Andrea