A New Pattern—Floral Box Toppers

We are excited to show you one of our latest patterns—Floral Box Toppers! Four designs that combine, wool, cotton, and embroidery to make flowers that can grace the top of a small box or tin.

 

This project came about because I (Kara) had a lot of flea and tick collar tins that I had been saving. The collars were packaged in plastic inside of the tin, so I had no fear of the chemicals being a problem. The tins were a nice size and it seemed like I should be able to use them in some way. I love to mix wool and cotton and thought that flowers would be a great way to do that—and then of course, embellish them with embroidery. While I used these tins, any box that is 4 3/4 " or larger would work well. Because these patterns are relatively small, it is easy to whip a few up in a short amount of time, and they will make great gifts. They could even be used to hold a gift! 

Pictures always help me when I am following a pattern, so when you make your own boxes, you can look at this post for some pointers. Here are some images of how Flower 2 in the pattern is put together.

Trace around template

Cut out just inside of the drawn line.

Use same template to cut out wool and
trace cutouts.

If you cut carefully, you will have wool hearts!

Center cotton and wool on background.

Staple or fuse in place and it is ready to stitch.

Once you have stitched your wool down, the embroidery fun begins. The pattern tells you what stitch goes where, but feel free to get creative and add the stitches you like.

The actual assembly is pretty straight forward and the directions are included in the pattern  I used an acid-free glue stick to adhere my pieces to the tins and found that it was more than adequate. The process for covering the bottom of the tin is the same as for the top, and the instructions in the pattern describe that as well. When adhering the fabric to the tin or box, you will need to do a little smoothing of the gathers. On a round tin, you just need to smooth them out evenly, whereas on a square tin or box you can pleat the fullness at each corner. Your boxes might not be the same as the ones shown, but the process for covering them will be the same.

I used velvet ribbon on the round boxes because it helped camouflage the bunchiness of the gathers. On the square box where the sides were smoother, I used seam binding. Whatever trim you use, it just needs to hide the raw edges of your fabric.

I measured the side of the tin so that I know how much seam allowance 
to cut, and then I added a bit more. You can always trim later.

All cut out and ready to put on my tin

Glued and trimmed

Velvet trim to hide the raw edges

Pleated corner on a square box

The sides of the finished boxes.

You can purchase the pattern on our website listed below in either digital or printed form. We hope that you find making these boxes as fun as we did. I have a lot of tins left, and I've already started picking out color combinations. They are a great way to use some small pieces of wool that you have laying around.

What will your boxes look like?

Floral Box Topper Pattern