I started by taking some scraps of fabric I had from a nursing cover I just made. I took 4 strips about 4x44 inches. I didn't measure these, it was just the length of the fabric by a couple inches think. I pinned one end of the strips in a styrofoam ring and started wrapping. And repeated until it was fully wrapped.
Next were the flowers. Again, more scraps that I had from my nursing cover. I took some strips about 2x44 (the width of the fabric x a few inches.) To begin, I tied a knot at the end of the strip for a starting point. Then started wrapping the fabric around the knot using hot glue every so often to keep the flower in tact. There are tutorials for this all over blog land too. They all intimidated me. I just did it and didn't worry about how any others looked. They probably aren't great, but they looked good to me. One of the flowers, I put a straight pin near the knot and wrapped the flower around it. It did hide the pin a little better, however, I only did this on one because I didn't think it helped that much.