how to | shabby chic wrist corsage

It's my year 11 prom tomorrow (eek) and being the slightly disorganised person that I am, I still haven't got any jewellery. For a while I've wanted to make my own wrist corsage after seeing some beautiful ones on pinterest, and this afternoon I finally got round to it using just scraps of fabrics I found in my cute little sewing box.

Okay, let me start by apologising for the quality of these photos. Usually I'd use my sister's DSLR but it isn't charged and so I had to use my ipod instead (definitely not a brilliant camera).  But I took pictures as I made the corsage and thought I'd share them on here for you lovely people to use as a tutorial.

So here it is: How to make a shabby chic wrist corsage

1) Cut out a shape from your base fabric - this will be the structure of the corsage

I used a sort of leafy/petally/very random shape for mine, and a golden silk fabric. Make sure you make the shape not too big or small - its got to be slightly wider than your wrist.

2) Using the first shape as a template, cut out 3 more from other fabrics

I did this step with a lacey material and a white mesh one. When you assemble the corsage, layer the shapes so they're not completely in line. It makes it look a bit more shabby chic and vintage.

3) Make a lace layer flower

To do this, cut out circles of two different laces. Layer them in order from largest to smallest, and sew together using a pearl bead on top.

4) Arrange your corsage

Okay so you may have noticed a few additions since the last couple of photos. I just added a fabric flower I got off an old hairband, a string of pearls, some smaller fabric flowers I got from a headband, and some leaf shapes I cut out from the lace material I used earlier. Stuff like this will probably be easy to find around your house - in drawers, sewing boxes, that box under the stairs that contains everything that sat out on the coffee table for too long and no one claimed the rights to (come on, every family has one of these).

Sew everything together, and don't be neat about it - its more fun that way.

5) Attach the main part of the corsage to a ribbon

I added some of the yellow lace I used earlier on to the top of my ribbon to make it just that liiiittle bit prettier. Sew the corsage and ribbon together (this time quite securely). 

6) Put it on and flaunt your wrist

And there you have it - your very own shabby chic wrist corsage. 

If you have a go yourself, let me know how it goes in the comments below.

Love always,

Fran xox