That title is so vague. And I didn’t realize this until I started on the Google-nets, looking for the best way to tackle this project.
Most, use real flowers, I have silk. I didn’t know what length stem I was looking for, and most of the silk flower tutorials use wires to extend the stems of the flowers to the length needed to be secured into the bouquet. Wire. I forgot to buy wire! Well, I figured enough purchasing had gone into this project and I was determined to make do with what I had…
What’s a little wire?
I haven’t been to many weddings, only been in one and really, am just no good at this kind of stuff. But, it was important to me to do this myself. So, I did my research, filled my head with ideas and went for it!
First, I ordered my flowers from AFloral. I found some pretty bad reviews of them online, but it’s easy to weed out the women who obviously ordered the wrong thing, women’s who’s expectations were too high and women who just apparently thought they were ordering real flowers, out, from the rest of the reviews.
I, was pleased.
The flowers, everything, total was about half of what I’ve heard brides spending on just their bouquets.
I was able to get mine, my toss, 5 bridesmaids bouquets, 7 boutonnieres, 2 corsages and still had flowers left over for the cake. Boom.
I received my flowers really, really quickly! I was SO surprised. I opened the box and let them breathe for a few days, as most ladies complained they were “squished”. Duh.
I felt they were gorgeous. The colors were on point and the quality was to be expected.
I kept a glue gun on hand to handle any buds that happened to separate from their stems in the brutal bouquet making process.
This proved to be a really smart move. I even took it with me in a bag to the venue, just in case a crucial flower popped out of a bouquet. And, can I say, I preferred this, because, you can’t fix a real flower.
Am I right?
I separated the flowers and made a game plan as to what I wanted in what.
This process took me about three days, but I did it a week and a half in advance… So make sure that you have an area that’s relatively undisturbed. This happened to be the corner of my dining room table that’s home to a broken chair.
Always craft with wine. It’s very important. 
Originally, I was going for a satin wrapped, pearl draped bouquet, with a few charms hanging off with photos of my Mother, Grandmother and Papa in them, then a brooch at the top.
However, when I finished, it became this overly done, thing that I just wasn’t into. So I started tearing stuff off and ended up with a simple bouquet I was REALLY happy with.
Another reason I loved doing it myself. Had a florist brought me, what I THOUGHT I wanted, I’d have died.
Now, besides flowers I needed:
SUPPLIES:
Floral tape. I feel like I had the cheapest kind they make, and that was fine. It takes some getting use to using if you haven’t before. Be patient.
Toilet paper rolls. Why? Because, when the bouquets were assembled, they felt a bit thin, the ends were not to be exposed and they weren’t uniform. Not cool. The rolls helped to conceal and unify. Haller.
Hot glue gun
Pliers/Wire cutters. I have a snazzy combo, or that’s just how they come. I’m not Tim Taylor, I have no idea what’s going on.
Scissors.
Wired ribbon. It’s MUCH classier, can be made into fuller bows and is easier to make an end on. <--- What?
Floral pins. I chose pearl headed ones.
Any additional accessories you choose to glam up that bouquet!
Let’s get started! (Excuse my photo quality, I was trying to assemble quickly and remember to take photos of each step, but with hot glue drying up or oozing onto my fingers, it proved challenging.)
Start by holding, in your hand, what you want in the middle of your bouquet. Maybe two or three flowers and start wrapping floral tape around and around and around. You’ll find a rhythm once you figure out how much wrapping you’re about to do.
I didn’t have wires, like I said earlier, to attach to flowers to elongate the stem for incorporating them into the bouquet. I prefer my method however, as I can’t imagine wrapping wires tightly enough to not be seen.
If you have shorter stems, hold them at the appropriate height on the stem to be as tall as your other flowers and tape, tape, tape. Chances are, you won’t be seeing that small amount of tape on the inside of your bouquet. So don’t stress.
Continue adding and taping, making sure to go all the way up and down the stems for support and uniformity. You don’t know who’s gonna be swinging their bridesmaid bouquet around the dance floor when “SHOUT!” comes on and you don’t want your guests with a face full of faux flowers.
Once you’re done, it’ll look something like this…
I chose a bouquet for the bridesmaids to start with, off the website that was already assembled. I took it apart, fluffed it up, rearranged it and added some Dusty Miller around the outside.
Next, you’re going to want to cut a strip out of the toilet paper rolls, to make them smaller, if your bouquet is thinner.
Wrap it around the stems, like so. I made sure I was as close to the bottom as possible, since I wanted a completely wrapped bouquet, flat on the bottom.
Tighten it, like you’re rolling it up (no pun intended, jeez) and glue inside the flap, hold closed until the glue is dry!
Please excuse my gorgeous nails….
If you wrapped it well, you should be able to carefully slide the roll down as close to the bottom of the stems as you can.
Use your wire cutter to snip the excess wire clump that might stick out.
At this point, my flowers have a little more fluffing to do. But, you get the gist of the look.
Now, onto the wrap. I didn’t get any photos of this part, because, well, I only have two hands. Ssshhhh….
First off, if you’re finishing the bottom of your bouquet with ribbon, kind of capping it off like I did and got no photos of, it’ll look nicer. I’ve seen the bottoms filled with floral pins, creating a cap of pearls, but with so many thick wires in this bouquet, it didn’t work.
So, to start off, you’ll want to cut a piece of ribbon long enough to wrap in a U shape, to conceal the bottom wires. Hot glue the ribbon long ways, wrap under the bouquet and glue tightly onto the other side. Wired ribbon helps in this step because you can pinch the ribbon flat against the stems to start the wrap and it doesn’t show.
A lot of tutorials say to start the ribbon in the back, pin it and start wrapping. This didn’t work for me because, where does the pin go? It just hides in a lump under the satin. Nope.
So, I positioned the end of the ribbon in the same spot, on the back of the bouquet (there’s no front and back, just choose a side.) at an angle. See how my wrap is at an angle? It keeps the ribbon from bunching. You don’t want to make the angle as steep as you want to end up with, you’ll be covering the top of the floral tape with ribbon so you’ll need a straight wrap around maybe twice, then start angling down as you wrap.
I held and spun with one hand and made sure to keep the ribbon as tight as possible to prevent bunching and slipping. It’ll still bunch a teeny bit, nothing’s perfect.
Once you reach the bottom, you’ll kind of repeat what you did at the top, leveling off the wrap until it’s even at the bottom. Give yourself about an inch or two and cut the ribbon off and fold it over, in towards the bouquet to create an edge. This satin ribbon frayed like a mother, so I folded twice, really tiny folds. Hold it tight and pin.
If you have too heavy of a hand, you’ll crush the end of the roll. Too light and the wrap’ll be loose and slip. Be careful pushing the pins into the wires, make sure to angle up, then at the top, angle down. Don’t force the pins, they’re pushing against wire and they’ll break, into your finger. Not fun, trust me.
This is the finished wrap on my bouquet. I crushed the paper towel roll I used to wrap it, at the bottom, a little. But, you can’t really tell. Yay!
A little sneak peek of my bridal bouquet. I’ll post more after the wedding, of course!
Next post I’ll cover boutonnieres! They’re simple…y…. frustrating.
I used bristle brushes to paint on the primer, which was a bad idea. I should have used foam brushes. I bought one of the 9 packs of assorted foam brushes for the paint but I should have made it two. For the top of the table, I used a foam roller for the paint only. Using a foam brush on the primer would have given me a smoother base, but I decided I was going for the “brush stroke, hand done” look half-way through, and stuck with it. It turned out well, in my opinion! For the top of the table, I used a foam roller for the paint, but not for the primer, like I said. 
