How to Make a French Pouf from a T Shirt

Here's another fun embellishment you can whip up with a recycled t-shirt and a few minutes: a french pouf.

You can make 'em in any size and with any pouffiniess-quotient you desire, then wear as a brooch, a corsage, in your hair, on your shoes, on kid clothing, etc. Or put some on sticks and make a centerpiece for your table.

Learn how to make a french pouf from a t-shirt after the jump...

How to Make a French Pouf from a T Shirt

First, assemble your materials. Scissors, needle & thread, an old t-shirt (or any knit jersey, the lighter weight, the better), and some tulle.


Cut off all the seams from your T.


Cut the material into strips. Mine are 3" wide.


Cut the strips into squares. Mine are 3X3.


Take one square and fold in half.


Fold in half again.


Cut around the unfolded corner to form a petal shape. You have just cut a circle, if you own a circle cutter, you could use it to do all this work for you.


Repeat. I put mine in stacks of five...


I made a ton, some for this pouf, some to save for future poufs.


Now take five petals (or four, depending on how poufy you want your pouf to be - the pink one uses 4) and overlap to arrange in a circle with the folded corners in the center.


Sew them together with your needle and thread.

Repeat for however many layers you want your pouf to have, mine has 3 layers of 5 jersey petals.

Repeat the process with tulle. I sewed with orange thread so you could see.


Now pull your needle and thread through your first jersey layer. Offset the tulle layer and pull your needle through it to attach the two. Sew a few stitches to secure.


Repeat, alternating jersey and tulle layers. This has 3 of each, but 2 of each would make a nice pouf with less stiffness.


On the top I did 3 jersey petals, then 3 tulle petals to round it out.


When your pouf is complete, you can do what you like with it. If you want to be able to wear it on any old dress or t-shirt, or even on a shoe, you can hot glue an alligator clip to it with a piece of felt like I did.

Or you can attach a pin backing to make a "corsage," or just sew it directly onto your item, like I did with Scarlet's dress.

Now fluff up your petals, unfold a few and push 'em around until you like the amount of poof you have going.


Done!


Now do some ballet.