Monday, January 31, 2011

Made Some Stamped Flower Pins for Hero Arts

These fabric flowers started from a simple Tweet that Jennifer McGuire posted a few weeks ago:
"All you Hero Arts fans - can any of you sew? Reply if you do. Thanks!"

I replied to tell her I knew how to sew (thanks for teaching me at a young age, Mom!). A few days later, I got an email from Jennifer asking for my mailing address so she could FedEx a box with all the supplies to make these amazing flowers. Hero Arts needed hundreds of these to give away at their booth during CHA.

I had seen this video from Sally Traidman several months ago so I knew I had a great tutorial to follow. These flowers are also on the cover of the current Hero Arts catalog and their website.

Sure enough, I quickly received the box with a lot of stamps (Three Leaves, Large Flower, Striped Flower and many more), batting, red and green fabric, paper flowers, buttons, thread, embroidery thread, fabric glue, pin backs, and white felt. I offered to make 50 flowers. They needed a quick turn-around on this project. I landed up FedExing 49 of them to Jennifer's hotel at CHA in LA.  I lost track of the 50th one; I found it later. For 5 of the flowers, I stamped on the reverse side of the red fabric to get a different look. That's the flower in the center of my collage.

Here's how the back of the flower looks. I glued the pin back to the felt circle and I also stitched it to make sure it stays secure.

Here's a picture of one of the flowers on me. This was such a fun project. When I was sewing the third flower, my sewing machine started acting up. I wasted a whole afternoon and evening troubleshooting everything (needle size, tension, upper and lower threading, bobbin). I even added drops of machine oil into the bobbin area for maintenance. I almost put my hands up in the air to give up, but I was persistent. I finally beat the sewing machine into submission. :-)

Thanks, Jennifer and Hero Arts!

11 comments:

Unknown said...

What a fabulous project! and they look amazing! Well done Anthonette

~amy~ said...

love, love, love the blooms...the pin is magnificent!!!!!

Jen Tapler said...

You are a ROCK STAR!!!!! Just one more reason for me to be disappointed I'm not at CHA - no beautiful flower pin crafted by Anthonette to bring home to Maui with me!

Lisa Brown said...

These are beautiful! I know the frustration of an uncooperative sewing machine...glad you stuck with it!

Silvia said...

These are adorable, Anthonette! Thanks for sharing the video tutorial link.

hugs,

ivy said...

beautiful! if you ever make another one....keep me in mind! ;)

sideoats + scribbles said...

Hey Anthonette! I didn't know you made those! I have one here that I snagged to give to my Gran -- she's been in the hospital and her favorite color is RED! It's sure to cheer her up!

Thanks so much to you and all the girls for making them, everyone LOVED them!!!

HUGS!!!!!!

Virginia L. said...

Absolutely sensational!! LOVE your hand stamped/stitched flowers! Congrats on the well-deserved HA Tweet!

Sankari W. said...

GET OUT OF TOWN!!! You are amazing Anthonette!!! Aww!!! I can't believe the depths of your talent girl!!! You are the ROCKSTARrest of ROCKSTARS!!!!

Sending you a hundred zillion sunshiney hugs sweet girl!!!!
YOU are forever awesome in my book!!!
xoxo,
Sankari :)

Becky Carafa said...

Wowzers! How fun and exciting! These are GORGEOUS!

Winter said...

How neat and what a fun project! :)