Flowers, Bouquets, Posies & Buttonholes

Wedding preparations continue. I spent a week surrounded by growing snippets of organza, slowly spreading around the house like a carpet of confetti. It wasn't ideal, it sticks to everything, but the boxful of flower shapes at the end was worth it.

I've now put together a couple of posies and my bouquet. I'm not going to lie, I winged it completely. My bouquet is a little more mushroom shaped than anticipated, but I'm still really pleased. Originally, I had an idea in my head that the flowers might have some kind of organisation, but it turns out that thin copper wires have their own ideas, and will go where they wish, regardless to how much Blue Tac you use to try and hold them in place. Yup, that's right I said Blu Tac, it's crafter's gold I tell you, it's a bit of a bum to cover up, but it does the job! 

I've been experimenting with arrangements to hang from nails on posts. This is the first unfinished prototype, and I also have a hanging, half polystyrene ball prototype too. We plan to visit the venue in a few weeks time to help decide whether to go for bunches or balls. 

 

To hide the Blue Tac and Sellotape holding the flowers in place, I have sprayed a little gold paint (but it's nice to know that I'll have something blue with me on the day), and wrapped the bases in hessian (burlap). I've also wrapped ribbon around the wires, which is possibly the hardest thing I've ever had to do! Well maybe not ever, but it made me swear a fair bit. It moves all over the place, kudos to florists everywhere that have to wrap ribbon around things all the time.

 

I've made a start on buttonholes too. I've only completed the one above so far (it now, after some more swearing, also has ribbon wrapped around it), we are going to try it on Rob's suit, then if we are happy, I'll continue with the others.

I've also been making ribbons on forks. It's such a neat and easy idea, heaven knows what people did before the internet though! I can't remember which tutorial I used in the end, but there are loads. 

 

I had about twenty jars left to decorate with hessian or paper cut-outs, and when they were done I went through them all and finished a majority off with little bows. With just over eighty jars complete, I think I probably have enough! 

The next step will be yet another box of organza flower shapes, as I need to make sure I have enough for the eight post arrangements. I've actually stopped counting how many flowers I've made so far, but I guarantee that is now comfortably over a thousand.