Fabric Tulip Wall Art - Tutorial

This past weekend my husband and I got a little crazy and decided to get both of the kiddos new, big kid beds.  At first, we were just thinking Natalie needed a new bed, but then we began to think about how Daniel has been trying to climb over his crib rails lately -- something Natalie never did.  So we decided to go for it and get them both set up in toddler beds.  

We went for a quick search on Craigslist, and, within about three hours, secured both beds last Friday.  The next day, we ran around town picking them up, taking apart the cribs, saving one for new baby number 3 and dropping the other one off at my cousin's house (her daughter is also about to have a baby).  Whew.  It was a busy day.

We also made a stop at Target and bought new bedding.  We made a really big deal out of the new bedding purchase and I think the the kiddos were both really excited.  The end result is two, very cute and very small toddler beds, and two very cute and very excited toddlers.  They love them!  And, fingers crossed, so far it hasn't been a difficult transition at all.  We were expecting all kinds of misbehavior -- jumping around in rooms, sleeping on the floor...you name it.  But, for the last few days anyway, they've both found their sleep pretty quickly, and in their beds.  We'll see how things go once they get more used to not having rails around them.

Anyway, to make a much longer story short, I decided that they both needed some new art on their walls.  The toddler beds are pretty small, and they leave some giant empty spots above the beds that need to be filled.  I found a cool project on The Delectable Home that uses a bird as the subject matter for some easy fabric art.  Although I love birds, I wanted to do something a bit different for Natalie's room.  I ended up deciding to do some sort of flower design.

First, I gathered my fabric.  I just used up some scraps of fabric from past projects, so this was F-R-E-E!  You may notice in this picture that I also have one piece of an embroidery hoop.  I've had this for years...and I have no idea where its mate is at, so I've never done anything with it.  I decided to try to use the leftover piece for this project.

   

The next step was to trace a circle on the background fabric a little larger than the embroidery hoop and cut it out:

Then I began hot gluing the fabric to the hoop.  If you are using the whole hoop (both pieces), you could skip this step and just put the fabric inside the hoop the normal way.

Oh, and I did these next few steps on my kids' drawing mat to save my dining room table; thus, you'll see some crayon scribbles underneath.  Sorry about that!

So far, so good!  Time to add the flowers.

I free-handed a couple of tulips on my contrasting fabric and cut them out.  After arranging them on the background fabric, I then began to hot glue them on.  I love hot glue.  I use it for just about anything.

After staring at my finished piece for awhile, I decided that I chose two fabrics that weren't contrast-y enough.

The flowers just didn't pop like I wanted them to...they needed something. So...

I began to sew an outline.  This was purely decorative, and if I had known I would end up doing this step, I might have skipped the hot glue.  But, I will say that having them all hot glued on did make the sewing easier.  They didn't move at all and really, this went pretty quickly.

Finally, I was able to hang my art:

I like it!  I think the flowers look kind of nice against the yellow walls and also with the patchwork curtain I made for Nat Nat a couple of years ago.  I do think this space needs something more, though.  But I work slowly.  I like to let it evolve over time.

Here's a shot with the curtain closed so that you can get a feel for all the colors in this room.

And a close-up of the finished piece:

I think the girl approves!

Total cost for this project: nothing --yay!
Total time for this project: about three hours.

Next up: Daniel's room.  Poor thing.  His walls are kind of bare right now.  Good thing he really doesn't care.  This is more for me, anyway ;)

Thanks for reading!
Sarah