coral invitation inspiration

coral

diy bead and feather bouquet

Like most of the brides in this economy I couldn't afford a $200+ bouquet so I decided to try my hand at making my own bouquet. I decided to do a trial run before actually making the real bouquet for my wedding day. With a little bit of patience and lots of excitment you can create your perfect bouquet. It's extra special because I know it's exactly what I want and I saved some money along the way.

Materials:

• Half a dozen of roses of your choice. I used pink and red intuition roses for texture and dark red roses for color contrast.
• Half a dozen of red and pink gerbera daisies.
• One string of red feathers I purchased from TonyHill.net
• One string of burgandy eyelash feather
• 30 sprays of beads
• Dark red ribbon to cover the stem
• Tassels for decoration
• Some floral wire and rubber bands
• Floral tape from Hoby Lobby
• Floral pin without pearl head from Hobby Lobby

Tools:

• Scissor to cut flowers
• Wire cutter for the bead stray

Assembly:

Take one rose and put three spray around it and then bind them together using floral tape. Do this for about 3 flowers. When you're done hold the three flowers together and make sure the heads are level and they don't stick up. This is the core of the bouquet. Use floral tape to bind them togehter so it's easier for you to hold. Now you can add bead sprays and flowers as you go. I add 2-3 sprays for each flower. Don't worry about the spray running in each other since it's wire you can adjust them afterward. I added each flower around the core and keep going in a circle. Till the bouquet toward you to make sure it's a dome shape, pull the stem a bit lower to make sure that the flowers around the core is a bit lower. Keep adding flowers in a circle around the core until you're happy with the size.

Once I'm happy with it, I used floral tape to go around the top of the bouquet making sure it's secure. I only did the top and then i used rubber band to secure the stems. I used one near the head of the bouquet, one 3 inch down and one at the end about 7 inch from the flower head.

Now you can hold the bouquet up and cut the stems so it's shorter. Depending how big your hands are you can cut accordingly so it's comfortable for you to hold your bouquet. I left 2-3 inches longer since I will be storing the bouquet for the next day. This way you can submerge your bouquet in water without wetting your ribbon and cut the stem before you use your bouquet.

I use floral tape to tape around the stems creating my bouquet's handle. Floral tape will create a stickiness that will help you wrap the ribbon around easier and secure your bouquet.

Now I add the feathers. My feather came in a string so I pin one end of the string to the stem and then rotate my bouquet and keep pinning the string to my bouqet. Go around in a circle and it will create a nice look from the top of your bouquet. I added the eyelash feather first and then the red feathers.

Once I'm done with the feathers I used a red damask red ribbon to wrap the steam hidding the floral tape and the bottom of the feathers. I started from the top and pin my ribbon to the handle of my bouqet. Keep twisting and pulling until you reach about 2-3 inches from the bottom of the handle. When you're done use a couple of pins to secure it. I use a tiny white pin without pearl head so it can be hidden when I pin it in the ribbon. I aslo pin a few more pins along the handle to make sure the ribbon doesn't infold itself.

Now I just tie my tassles around the handle in a knot and I'm ready to go.

Here are a few pictures of the finish product.

Hope this inspire some of you to make your own bouquet. It's really a fun experience for me and I would do it over and over again. I spent around $24 for flowers, $15 for feathers and tassles and $5 for beads and floral tape. A total of $44 for my bouquet.