Flower Rings

I adore these flower rings. If only they were easier to make! My friend Chelsea showed me these rings while I was at camp, but it took me at least a week after camp to master them enough to make a few I was happy with. I made one for my niece's birthday last week and made a few extra for her sister, mom, and my mom. I guess they were worth the time, but they were definitely tedious.

**Also today is Pinterest Challenge day over at Young House Love,  Bower Power, Ten June, and Centsational Girl - and this ring is definitely something I've seen on Pinterest - like here and here.  So in the spirit of actually trying things we've pinned... here is my experiment in fabric flower ring making!

Have you ever made one of these rings? Do you have any tips/tricks to make the process go more quickly or easier? I'd love to hear about it if you do!

If not... read on for the tutorial, but remember, it may take some practice to get it right!

You will need felt and cotton fabric that match - not much of either one though, I would say less than 1/4 of a yard and 1/8 sheet of felt would be plenty, plus a ring back, hot glue, super glue, scissors, and a quarter. Start with a quarter - trace around it on the felt and cut that out. Then trace it on the fabric and cut out 11 or 12 circles of fabric (the size of the quarter). Fold each of those pieces of fabric 3 times so a little cone is created out of each circle of fabric. Then you simply glue the cones to the felt piece with hot glue and super glue the felt piece to the ring back. Sounds simple right? It turned out to be a little harder than I thought it would be - but here are the tips I came up with:

1. Fold your fabric cones first, and put them under an edge of a book so they are flattened a little and hold their shape better.
2. Face the first two "cones" toward each other in the center of the felt, then add the other cones (which represent the petals) in a circle moving toward the outside of the circle.
3. Use low-temp hot glue so you can press the fabric into the felt with your fingers without burning yourself!
4. If the final flower isn't a perfect circle - who cares! Cut any felt that sticks out around the edges off.

Thanks to Chelsea for helping me come up with a few items on that list - I would have never been able to master this without her help! Check out the other rings I made below...

Here you can see the ring backs... also very patriotic! :-)

Below is how I packaged the ring I made for my nieces birthday - I thought the green tissue paper was fitting and sort of looked like grass under the flower. 

These were my first three attempts - the middle one was first and I didn't fold my cones tight enough. The one on the left was second - I thought maybe the glitter would hide the chaos underneath. The one on the right was third - I was sort of getting the hang of it. By the fourth attempt I wasn't doing too bad anymore!

So again: Have you ever made one of these rings? Do you have any tips/tricks to make the process go more quickly or easier? I'd love to hear about it if you do!