DIY Wedding Bouquet

Guys, not that I'm one to toot my own horn or anything but I seriously love this little gem of a bouquet. More so, I'm rather impressed with how pretty it turned out considering I have no previous floral experience or know-how when it comes to putting together a bunch of blooms. Can any of you brides out there please use these colours for your own wedding? I may have a new fave palette, lemme tell you. Below are some photos from my little DIY adventure and as always, a slight disclaimer about this tutorial; I am not a professional, and I am confident there is a correct way quite different from my way, to make a proper bouquet. However I am a firm believer that DIY sort of tosses out all means of professionalism and right-way-of-doing-things-ness out the door because after all, you're doin it by yo-self. So here's how I did it.

{Step 1} First things first, get your flowers from a flower market; they'll be cheaper. Then once you've picked your flowers for the bouquet, remove all leaves and thorns from the stems using your hands. Be careful not to pull apart parts of the base stem or flowers as you pull the leaves off. Lay out your blooms on your work station by type (roses with roses, carnations with carnations) as it'll be easier to see what you're working with when you construct the bouquet.

{Step 2} For blooms like lisianthus or spray roses where their stems are more delicate or there are multiple sprigs off of one stem, I used green floral table to fasten the stems together. I found this helped the multiple blooms on one stem sort of stick together and stand up straighter once they were clustered together with the other stems. Lisianthus blooms are so thin and tend to droop a little so this really helped with keeping them fresh looking.

{Step 3} For some of the thicker stemmed flowers like any type of rose, I used long floral wire strands to reinforce the stems. I started at the top of the stem closest to the flower and wrapped the wire strands down and around the stem. But after wiring a few roses I realized that most stems were either strong enough on their own that they didn't need wiring, or they were too delicate that the stems were snapping when I did try to wire them (which was the case with the lone daisy I had). Essentially I found that this step could have been left out.

{Step 4} Figure out what flowers you'd like to make up the center/middle of your bouquet. I used a garden rose, two regular pink roses, a carnation and a lisianthus. Using green floral tape I secured the stems of these flowers together making sure the bouquet had the basic shape I was after. You'll need to really hold on to the stems tightly as the secnd you loosen up your grip you risk losing the shape you had secured. Also be aware that floral tape is rather delicate.

{Step 5} Continue adding more of your blooms to the basic structure you've created, filling in holes and spaces as you feel fit. I added three to five blooms each time before stopping and securing them with floral tape to the base. since I wanted a really texturized feel, I tried to add in different shapes and heights of flowers/greenery to the middle of the bouquet. Continue to add your flowers until all of your blooms are taped to the base.

{Step 6} Using floral wire, tightly wrap the base of all of the taped together stems (this made the stems bundle closer to one another than they would have been had I just of used the floral tape). After the wire was added around the taped together stems, I went back around the spiraled wire with floral tape to sort of smooth out the surface. I added almost three layers of floral tape to make sure everything was perfectly in tact. 

{Step 7} Using floral pins or corsage pins with pearl-heads, I fastened two pieces of fabric to the stems, pushing the pins into the stems upwards. I used six pins to secure the fabric making sure to leave a few inches of bare stems at the bottom. I then used white rope to tied a bow around the pink fabric which was used to hide the floral tape and wire, in lieu of traditional ribbon. Et voila!

Whatcha think, friends? Happy flowering! xoxo

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DIY Twine-Wrapped Mason Jars

I feel like I'm a little late in joining the rustic chic party but hey better late than never right? In celebration of my latest project in the works which I shared a bit with you here, I thought I'd give these twine-wrapped mason jars a try. After all I certainly love wrapping and gluing anything I can around vases. This project was so easy peasy that you too can create your own with whatever kind of jar, twine and ribbon you want to use. The supplies are few as all you need is some glue (either crazy glue or you can use a glue gun), ribbon, mason jars, flowers and of course, lots and lots of the good stuff. Also known as twine. Oh sweet sweet twine. I heart you.

The jars I found were from Hobby Lobby as was the twine. I purchased the shorter jars since I was looking to save a bit of cash if you know what I mean, but I think taller jars would have looked really cool as the layers of twine would have crawled up the sides of the jar a little bit higher. Here are a few of the steps I took to wrap the twine around the mason jars. The most important part is obviously fastening the twine to the jar when you start and finish wrapping it around. I also made sure to wrap the twine over and across the exact point where I glued the start of the twine to the glass. This sort of anchored the twine to the glass and allowed me to wrap the twine sooner than it would have taken me if I had waited for the glue to dry. Patience? What's that?

Then you can make the twine sort of wrap around in a diagonal pattern over the first layer of twine. I did this by wrapping the twine in a figure 8 pattern over and over again until I felt like it looked right. And with that you can tie a pretty ribbon bow over both layers of twine to make the little jar flower-ready. Imagine a navy and red ribbon for a nautical them wedding? I think I may have just inspired myself. Love it when that happens.

Et voila! A few carnations, some baby's breath, a spray rose and pink stock complete the look.

Happy crafting!

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DIY Project: Will You Be My Bridesmaid?

When a bride-to-be happens to be super cute, super fabulous and super talented, I can't help but squeal with delight when she sends me the most adorable project ever. There's no doubt a whole lot of thought goes into proposals these days. But how often do newly engaged chicks really consider how they'll ask their gal pals to serve as bridesmaids? After you check out this clever tutorial you be sure to rethink how you plan on asking your girls to stand next to you on the biggest day of your life. Don't forget to head on over to Emilee's blog and etsy shop where I'm pretty positive you'll find something to swoon over.

{What You'll Need}

wooden spool

alphabet stamps

an ink pad

scissors

fabric and/or trim

lace and/or glue

any packaging supplies you'd like

{Step 1} Cut your fabric or trim so that the width is just smaller than your wooden spool. You can make it just long enough for your message or longer - I did mine a bit longer to wrap around the spool a little extra.

{Step 2} Stamp out the words "Will You Be My Bridesmaid?" or "Will You Be My Maid of Honour?" on the fabric strip using your alphabet stamps and ink. 

{Step 3} You can use either a piece of tape or a dot of glue to attach your stamped fabric to the spool. Start at the right side (where your message ends) and roll so that when you unroll the fabric your message is revealed.

{Step 4} Once your fabric is all wrapped up you can tie it closed with ribbon or string or lace and add any extra touches you want! Here's how the final product turned out. Would you not squeal with delight if this little creation was handed to you? I absolutely love it! How did you ask your friends to serve as bridesmaids?

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