SlenderStalk

The party's over . . .

I want to show you the bouquets and flowers for Mara's wedding on a beautiful late spring day with perfect weather and perfect everything else too.

I had been making centerpieces for my daughter’s wedding, and her and her maid-of-honor’s bouquets as well, for about 3 months. This has been my pleasure and privilege. Thank God I retired on December 1, 2013.

finished flowers

I had to learn new things. How to make a flower, for one. Internet sources were my saviors: Etsy shops for ideas, and Google is my best friend. What kind of paper do I use? Origami or scrapbook (I used both)? Hot glue or white glue (hot). What kind of wire stems to use – fabric-wrapped or plain think green ones (I came to prefer the wrapped, and recommend them if you try it out),

I am not going to present a tutorial of my own, because if you enter “kusudama” in your search box, you will be graced with pages and pages of them. But I would like to share with you the link from Facebook that grabbed me, and how I did some of the outlined origami flower bouquet steps along the way.  But do check out this one: http://www.capitolromance.com.

First, the paper. Origami paper is expensive, and fragile, and susceptible to creasing and crumpling if handled too much. I found that thin scrapbook paper works best,  or even printer paper, which comes in lots of designs. One paper artist even uses 3x3 Post-Its, which I did try, and solved the stickiness problem with baby powder.  It’s cheaper to just use colored printer paper. Vellum makes gorgeous semi-translucent flowers.

bouquet flowers before pearls

white printer paper

For glue I used a standard hot glue gun (my next best friend after Google), and went through glue sticks like water. The advantage to hot glue is that it sticks fast, although Scotch Tacky Glue would be a good second choice, especially if you are working with kids. Another advantage to the Scotch glue: no gossamer strings that you have to get rid of! I may go that way next time.

After assembly I glued an embellishment onto the center of the flowers. For the bouquets. Boutonnieres, and flowers for my daughter’s hair, I used stick-on embellishments carefully gleaned from Michael’s and Joann’s clearance racks over the years. For the centerpiece flowers, I used buttons.

How to assemble? First, I joined two flowers using floral tape. This is a sticky business and it took me a while to get comfortable with it. Then I joined the two-flower stems gradually to others for the bouquets, but for the centerpieces just used two-flower stems stuck into the filler. I finally wrapped the bouquet steps in cotton ribbon, fastening it at the ends with corsage pins. Google, bless you, and long may you reign.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about the invitations. And the favors. Doable by anyone.

Anne