How to Make a Silk Flower Wrist Corsage

Making a pretty silk-flower wrist corsage isn't complicated, and it completes your outfit, whether the dress-up occasion is prom night, a wedding or another special event. Save a piece of your dress fabric to make your corsage if you want it to match exactly. If you bought your dress, you may use a pretty ribbon or piece of lace to form the fabric bracelet to which the silk flower is sewn. Ready to start? Your corsage is only about an hour away.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Fabric measuring tape
• Piece of fabric from dress
• 12 inches of 1/2--inch-wide elastic
• 1 large silk flower
• 2 to 5 small silk flowers
• Needle and thread to match fabric
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Scissors
• Large safety pin

1. Wrap the measuring tape around your wrist to measure it.
   Add ½ inch to your wrist measurement and mark this length on the piece of dress fabric using the ruler and a pencil. For example, if your wrist measurement is 5.5 inches, add ½ inch and mark the fabric at 6 inches long. Mark the fabric 1 inch wide.

2. Cut out the piece of fabric and fold it in half lengthwise. Be sure you have the right sides of the material facing each other after you've folded it. (All you should see is a long strip of plain material, because you've folded the printed side, or right side of the material as it's known in sewing, to the inside.)
   Sew the long edges together in a seam, using a simple running stitch. Now turn the long tube you just made right side (or printed side) out, as if it were a very skinny sock.

3. Cut the elastic exactly the same length as your wrist measurement. Open the safety pin and push the safety pin's point through one end of the elastic. Close the pin and thread the elastic through the long fabric tube. Once the safety pin has pulled the elastic through the entire tube, hold both ends of the elastic firmly and open the safety pin to remove it.
   Sew the ends of the elastic together in a short seam.

4. Use small stitches and sew one end of the fabric to the other end, so it looks like that long, skinny tube has turned into a fabric bracelet. Place the large silk flower right on top of where you just sewed those ends of the fabric together, and use tiny stitches to secure the flower to the fabric, like this:
   Push the needle through the silk flower from underneath, then move the tip of the needle over about a quarter-inch and push the needle back through the flower and into the fabric, where you take another tiny stitch. Repeat until the flower is securely attached to the fabric bracelet.

5. Put a small silk flower on each side of the largest one and repeat Step 4's tiny-stitch instructions until you have all the smaller silk flowers sewn on too.

Tips & Warnings

• You can also use a pretty ribbon or ½-inch-wide lace that matches your dress to make the fabric-bracelet base for your silk-flower wrist corsage. Add strings of tiny pearls, sprigs of silk baby's breath or ¼-inch-wide ribbons for a really fancy wrist corsage.
• Take at least a dozen stitches with your needle and thread to be sure the large silk flower will stay attached to the fabric bracelet you've made, and sew the smaller flowers on firmly, too. You don't want to be dancing and have a flower fall off your corsage and onto the dance floor, creating a slipping hazard. Keep your stitches on the underside of the flower petals, so they don't show when you're wearing the corsage.

Resources

• Here's how to sew that running stitch
• Some really pretty wrist corsage ideas here