Project: Heart Stealing Singed Peony

If you are a perfectionist, stop here. This project is not for you! Turn back! This project will drive you nutso. This is a project that is less by the numbers with a great deal of creative winging it.

The last singed flower we made is beautiful, but its a bit of an "every man's" flower. They are simple so everyone makes them. Sure, you can set yourself apart by using unique fabrics but its so much more fun have pretties that not everyone and their brother has. Heck, and Monday is Valentine's Day so we wanted to make something unique using hearts!

Before we start please read over the tutorial on singed flowers we previously did. It will provide several useful tips that carry over to this tutorial also. You can find it HERE.

Today's Quest: The elusive singed peony

Supplies:
Synthetic fabric
TWO lighters
Needle- we used a long doll making needle
Thread- we prefer upholstery thread
Scissors

Cut hearts out in 4 sizes. Extra Small, Small, Medium and Large. To speed up this process we folded our sheer fabric over several times so we could cut 3 hearts together at a time. There is no exact science to this. There is no exact number of any of the sizes. I made about 6-10 in each extra small and small hearts. Medium and large hearts i did 3-5 each. My hearts were not perfect hearts and they did not match. Some we're chubby and some were skinny and some were just right. We cut out a bunch and sorted them into piles by approximate size.

The next step is to singe all the hearts. Remember your Smokey the Bear tips from our last singed flower adventure and have a bowl of water ready in case you need to drop something flaming into it. Fire extinguishers are also all the craze this season for the savvy crafter to have in close proximity. We requested two lighters to have on hand for this flower. You could get by with just having one but we like to speed craft. If you only have one lighter you will have to take a break for it to cool off a few times. Some people try to use candles for this reason. We don't. I like the control you get with a lighter. It has a smaller more controllable flame that shuts off as soon as you take your finger off the button. This also decreases the chances of me setting my studio on fire in some clumsy fiasco in which I surely knock a lit candle over. Run your lighter around the edges of your hearts to melt and curl the edges. Keep all your finished petals sorted by size.

Thread your needle and start by weaving your needle through alternating from your piles of extra small and small hearts.

Stack and scrunch these on your need and thread until you have all of the two sizes used.

Tie your two ends of thread together knotting well.

Arrange your medium hearts in such a way that they overlap slightly. Pick up this layer and stab your needle straight through the area of your layer that allows to go through all of the arranged layers.

Pull thread tightly, then pinch the flower and sew one longways stitch, then do this again at a 90 degree angle from your first long stitch.

Sewing the "x" secures this layer. Add as many layers in this way as you desire. We only did one medium layer then an additional large layer. Attach to whatever your little heart desires!

Not to shabby, eh? Speaking of shabby, if you like the shabby chic look skip all the steps we used open flames in and the flower will fray during normal use. Anyone got odds on who is going to get to wear this beauty, me or the teen?