I have recently discovered information on how to create Kanzashi, and I have become slightly obsessed with them. I noticed it was very hard to find the little bit of information out there on Kanzashi... so I decided to put together this page a a central location so that people can find the tutorials and instructions more easily.
the example shown at the top of this page is my first attempt at folding these flower hair ornaments. you can see a few images of this in place in my hair in the gallery. because I had not had time to gather together the traditional supplies (I was too excited), I decided to try out the folding with paper. my first petal I folded was out of index card. I loved how easily and nicely it took the shape. so next I tried with some recycled book page (I am an altered book artist, after all!) and it didn't hold shape well at all. for the finished one shown, I backed the paper with tinfoil (with spray adhesive) to give it a little body. it worked wonderfully! I am going to be continuing to make some more of these out of paper even as I continue to learn to make them more traditionally in silk.there are some very detailed videos of master Japanese craftsmen making Kanzashi put out by the Tokyo Board of Tourism... unfortunatly, the videos are all in Japanese. they are detailed enough to give you a good sense of how it's done though. these are a must see if you would like to learn how to do Kanzashi. right-click and choose "save target as." to save these videos for continued reference.
here is one english tutorial on how to fold the petals that was posted in the Craftgrrl comunity on Livejournal.
here is another folding tutorial on craftster.org
here is an interesting spin - a kanzashi flower ring
Ingredients: 1 cup rice, 1/4 cup salt, 3-4 (or more) cups water.
Directions: Combine all of the ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil. Lower the temperature and simmer for at least 45 minutes. Check the rice - it should be looking almost like oatmeal (very small lumps left). If it's more discernably rice, add water and cook longer. When it looks almost like oatmeal, remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature. Blend in a blender (or you can put it through a sieve to remove the larger rice peices. You may need to add more water to get it to blend all the way.
Store in the refridgerator.
this produces a very slow drying glue that is very hard and nearly invisible when dry. it will also prevent the petal edges from fraying if they extend beyound your flower base.
useing craft wire, create some small loops at the bottoms of the kanzashi to which you can attach decorative string.
Thread the decorative string through the metal loop. Create a loop with the string by glueing the tip to the remaining length. This will attach to the string to the rest of the kanzashi.
The "layers" are made from two petals glued together. Once you have all these sets of petals made Glue them to the decorative string that you have hanging from the kanzashi. It's best to do this while the string is hanging down on its own from a table top. This will make sure that the petals are all facing the same direction when held up.
Finish off the bottom of the string by looping it through a decorative bell similar to how you looped it through the wire at the top.
To combat freying fabric coat cut edges with a light layer of glue.
