Crafting for Mother's Day - Silk Corsage

This, my friends has got to be the easiest thing I've ever made that took me the longest time to prethink. Yes, prethink. Prethink is what I do when I drag out the choice of fabrics, mess around doing google image searches for the right inspiration and then work out every.single.detail. in my head before giving up and putting it off for later. Is it any wonder I actually produce anything? Enough about my mental problems, on to mother's day.

When I lived back home (Miami for the curious), I would buy my mom and grandmother an orchid corsage for mother's day. My mom's wold be a beautiful colorful version while my grandmother's would be an elegant white. In case you didn't know in most Latin American countries when a woman wears a corsage for mother's day if her own mother is not living, she wears white. So don't make the mistake of giving a latin woman a white corsage if her mami is still alive and kicking. Just don't.

I've now been living in another state for almost 9 years and haven't been back home for mother's day. So this year I thought it would be nice to send my mom a fabric corsage like the many versions I've seen circulating the craft blogs. I have a silk dupioni sling I had made by Rev. Jan which I wore to pieces with my second son. I caught it on a car door and it ripped which of course meant it was toast. No biggie, I used it well into his second year of life. However I couldn't part with the fabric. I had prewashed the silk dupioni so instead of a formal stiff fabric, it was transformed into a fluid, two toned shimmery delight.



Today I found a second life for someone very deserving - my mami. I cut out random circles in progressively smaller sizes. Then I rememberd seeing some gorgeous organza corsages with singed edges and tried it on my silk. The silk singed beautifully. Note to self: Don't singe fabric in front of a firefighter obsessed five year old and make it look fun. After having a serious fire safety chat, I stacked the circles slightly off center and proceeded to ask the design team (aka the five and three year old) to help me pick out a button for the middle.



Did I mention my button stash is a one pound bag of random buttons I bought years ago? One pound of buttons is a lot, whoo wee it's a lot. After entertaining all possibilities from the ahem, design team I finally chose this sparkly black half moon button and sewed it on with black embroidery floss. I love how it compliments the singed edges.



Wow, that's a sentence I never thought I'd write.

I sewed a mini safety pin to the back, wrote mom a sappy mother's day card I know she will love, tucked in the pin and plastered the envelope with enough stamps to send it to New Zealand and back. Now the wheels are turning for some more corsages to adorn bags and even more burning fabric. Although I'll have to do it at night to avoid curious gazes from the boys.