on fire

I was wandering around on 100 Layer Cake the other day, and a post from this week's guest blogger there caught my eye.  First, it had my attention because it was written by Lanie, the owner of NYC's new bridal boutique Lovely.  Lovely is carrying the work of my favorite dress designer, Elizabeth Dye.  So there's that.

The other thing that got me, though, was that Lanie's post is a how-to for DIY fabric flowers, something I've been thinking about dabbling with for awhile now.  The best part is that her step-by-step involves polyester fabric and open flames.  My pyromaniac inner child couldn't say no.

I'm not going to re-hash the how-to.  You can read Lanie's original post for that.  Mostly, I just wanted to tell you that I think deliberately melting plastic in a poorly-ventilated apartment might not be a great idea.  Oh, and I wanted to show off what I managed in spite of the fact that my brain cells were probably expiring, one by one.

I made a flower in turquoise first.

 I backed it with a little circle of felt and added some glass beads to the center, just for fun.

And after I finished the blue one, I really, really wanted a yellow one, too.  I don't know why.  It was probably the fumes.

I like the color of the yellow better, but I'm not sure lighter fabrics work well for this project.  If you squint a little, you can see the little burn marks along the edges of the yellow petals.  They don't show up nearly as much on the blue one.

These are fun to make, and they go fast.  I'm going to have to give some thought, though, as to whether or not I'd feel safe making thirty or forty of them.  Along with the burning plastic concern, there's also the matter of the cat, who has no understanding of personal space.  Or of the dangers of an open flame.

If you'd like to see more of Lanie and her work, you can see photos from her recent wedding featured on Style Me Pretty.

Happy weekend, everyone!  I'll be back on Monday with more action and excitement to share.