The way you [DIY] the things you do, part 2

Remember this:

that I made here?

I just found this lovely DIY wedding paper pomander from Once Wed:


I wish I saw the Once Wed pomander sooner. I was trying to layer too many flowers to keep the styrofoam from showing. She wrapped the ball entirely in seam binding to hide the styrofoam. Thank you, Once Wed, for your wonderful DIY projects.

I didn't have seam binding (I am not even sure what that is). I tried ribbon first, but that didn't work because it won't lie flat. I remembered I bought this thin mesh "thing" (possibly drapes?) for $1.50 in the "As Is" section of IKEA. I cut a thin strip (~1"), wrapped, and pinned at the top.

Instead of paper flowers, I cut fabric flowers. Using what I learned from my almost favorite book, Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts that I also talked about here, I finally bought some Stiffy (that mr. c cannot stop laughing at) from Michaels:


It is super easy to use. I just brushed on a thin layer of Stiffy onto the fabric with a foam brush, soaked up any excess with a paper towel, and let it dry flat on a rack.

I used the Carla Craft Ume paper punches for about half of the flowers. The small one is easy to use, even with fabric. After punching about 10 large flowers, my hand hurt so much I was ready to chuck that POS across the room. Okay, it's not really a POS, but I will keep the paper punches for their original purpose. Thank goodness for mr. c's gift also talked about here. I used my Pazzles Creative Cutter Inspiration to cut the remainder of the large flowers.

Then I was good to attach 30-35 of these:

to this:


to make this:

DIY-ing it attempt #2.