Wedding Fridays | DIY #1 – Boutonniere Blunder
Today, I thought I would share the first of my DIY adventures from the DIY List I posted two weeks ago. You can probably tell by the title that this DIY, like most, did not go as easily as I thought. Last weekend with the help of a few tutorials on fabric boutonnieres, I headed off to Joann’s and Michaels to get my supplies. I decide to make the flowers out of linen, buy fake leaves and cover sticks with florist tape to look like stems. Easy peasy, right? I was so happy that I found a soft red linen to match Kristin’s bridesmaid dress and lots of colorful ribbon to tie around the “stems”. I only bought the fabric for one boutonniere just to test things out before committing too much money.
In terms of money, my goal was to spend way less than $154 to create 11 boutonnieres (6 groomsmen, 2 fathers and 3 grandfathers). Craig’s boutonniere is already included in our florist contract for $14 to match my bouquet. So for less than $40 in supplies and on my way home, I was feeling pretty good about this project. After taking the picture below I was confident that, yes, this is going to be beautiful. I thought, not only am I saving $100 but our boutonnieres are going to turn out so pretty that it will be worth the time then to just pay the florist. They will look exactly like this one, right?
Whomp, whomp. Not exactly. After cutting out a few layers of petals, I realized that the fabric was fraying pretty not cute like so out came the Mod Podge. My first time ever using the stuff, pretty surprising, huh? I read that if you spread an even, thin layer on the back of the fabric it would stop the fraying. Awesome sauce, that’s the solution, right? (All together now, “not exactly”.) The Mod Podge made the fabric really stiff and not sweet and soft like I wanted the flowers. It also left the back of the fabric very glossy and I will take the fraying over that. Back to the previous petals and it was on to trying to make this thing look like a flower instead of a pile of scrap fabric. I tried and tried but could not get the flower to cup and be a cute little bud like my inspiration image. After $40, 4 hours and loads of frustration, I was able to produce one fugly boutonniere. Now in supply terms, I probably only spent $4 on this one boutonniere and had leftovers to make more but still, could I guarantee that they would look better? not take as much time? and I still have to buy fabric for the other colors. buggers.
So I weighed my choices… If I cut out each petal individually, sew them together and put clear nail polish on the edge to stop fraying, I could possibly get tight bulbs like my inspiration boutonniere. Or, I could email the florist tomorrow and add the boutonnieres to our contract and move on to other DIYs. Hmm… Then I saw that my florist was featured on a popular wedding blog, Style Me Pretty, and that her boutonnieres look like this beaut. Game over! Decision made. Because that, my friend, is one good looking boutonniere. It’s the Craig of boutonnieres if I want to get all cheesy on you. :)
At the end of the day, I am happy, Craig is happy and I am ready to tackle more DIYs having grown from this experience. That sounds like a solution to me. Janine: 1, DIY list: less one project!
THE DIY LIST:
1. perforated metal hurricanes
2. foam directional signs
3. sand/concrete buckets with poles for cafe string lights
4. ribbons oh my!
5. bunting or tassels for cake background decor
6. groomsmen boutonnieres
7. fabric table runners
8. ampersand for bride & groom chairs
9. succulents planted in mercury votives
On to the next project, wish me luck and leave comment loves! You might ask why I didn’t try to make the boutonniere look like the image from the DIY List. I think that design is really cute but wondered if my groomsmen would feel silly wearing a first place science fair like boutonniere. I know, I am silly like that. ;)
2 Responses to “Wedding Fridays | DIY #1 – Boutonniere Blunder”
Hey!!! I think your bout came out great, what do u mean it didn’t work?? I love em!
love it. even more. . . love that you can keep it forever. would love to see what a bouquet would look like made out of flowers like these. that would be really cool to keep.