I have made my first foray into kanzashi flower crafting!

A kanzashi is a traditional hair piece, often floral, used in Japanese hairstyles. These days, the term can refer to folded fabric flowers.

Here is a handy link to the tutorial that I used by Crafty Angels. It’s great for starters like me.

I’d start with a very wide ribbon so you can get used to the steps. My mauve-coloured ribbon here is 5cm wide.

You will also need scissors, some pliers (I used jewellery pliers to hold the petals!), hot glue, and a candle light/lighter flame.

Ribbon is cut into squares and then folded into a certain shape. The flame helps seal the ribbon ends together, you can see the material slightly shrink. On this occasion, I held the flame too close to the ribbon, and it actually burnt the ends! You should only need to hold the ribbon just above the flame and no contact needs to be made.

When all the petals are made (I made 14), the sides need to be hotglued together, in a circle. Then a large button is added to hide the centre. Look at all those trimmings!

It is generally advised to stick the flower onto a piece of felt before the hair clip itself, especially if you made a burnt mess like I did! Fortunately it will all be hidden under this disc.

This does make quite a large flower, coincidentally mine turned out to be 5cm wide. For larger flowers, a hair comb would be better. That’s what I plan to make next, I’ve already ordered a pack of combs!

You can decorate kanzashi with things such as green leaves, or dangling tails for more elegance. This is certainly a nice touch I would like to use when I get better at this!

Here’s the progress on my hair clip board so far!

Materials needed:
– 5cm mauve-coloured satin ribbon
– large white button
– white felt
– alligator clip

Tools needed:
– hot glue gun
– lighter
– jewellery pliers