Foam Roses - Part Three (Flower Lapels)

Using the medium sized foam roses I created flower lapels for the entire bridal party (Groomsmen, Groom, Father of the Groom, Mother of the Groom, Grandfather of the Groom, Grandmother of the Groom, Mother of the Bride and Grandmother of the Bride).
Tip: I attached each person name to the flower so I wouldn't forget who it was for. Very handy on the day as I had a million things going through my brain.

I chose a different colour rose depending on who it was for. I also bought a packet of satin green leaves and cream coloured sewing pins. I attached a leaf to each rose and wrapped satin ribbon around the stems. The ribbon was secured with double sided tape and the cream pin attached the flower to the wearer.

Here is a pic of the flower lapels in action.

Foam Roses - Part Two (Flower Girl Basket)

Using the foam roses I created a flower girl basket for my niece. All the roses were secured in so that if little miss happened to turn the basket upside down nothing would fall out. This was highly important as she was only 18 months old.

Here is the basket.

I bought the wicker base from Spotlight and it did not have handles so I had to make those myself. Yes you could just buy a basket, but at the time I couldn't find one so I had to be creative. The handle is a piece of clear plastic tubing with wire threaded through and attached to the wicker base. I wrapped satin ribbon around the handle and created bows at either end. I sat a green foam brick (Florist Foam) in the base of the basket and secured it with wire. Using the wire stems I stuck each rose into the green foam brick. Just like with the bouquets I used a mix of large/medium roses and staggered the shade of pink. The roses were not pushed all the way down as I wanted to create a soft arch.

Here is little miss with the basket.

Foam Roses - Part One (Bouquets)

Task 1. Creating my own wedding bouquets.
I decided to use foam roses to create my wedding bouquets as they looked realistic, had different colour options, could be manipulated and were in my price range. I found them at Spotlight and they were sold in colour/size bunches i.e 5x large white, 10x medium baby pink or a packet of baby roses. I wanted soft shades of pink so these were perfect.
My bouquet was shades of pink and the 3 bridesmaid's had white bouquets.
I used a foam ball as the base of my bouquet and used the wire stem of the roses to pierce through it. I used a mix of medium and large roses to create the bouquet and for mine I staggered the shades of pink.
(Tip: The size of the foam ball determines the size of the bouquet, wish mine had been a bit bigger).

Once the ball was covered in roses, I twisted the wire stems together at the base to create a "handle". The handle was too skinny, so I added some padding by wrapping napkins around the wire and securing with masking tape. As a finishing touch I wrapped satin ribbon around the handle and secured it with pins. I also added the fake leaves to hide the bits of foam ball showing at the base.

And here are the finished bouquets.

I was pretty impressed with the result, as they have the look of real roses without the cost. 

Here are some photos from my wedding.

Perspective - Weddings and Flowers

I honestly think paying over $1000 for something that is going to die in a few days is cray cray. Well, due to my wedding being near Christmas all florists wanted to charge an additional %15 on top of the already high price of flowers. All I wanted was 4 rose bouquets, some single roses for lapels, a flower girl basket and some single roses to decorate the wedding table. But just those things cost the price of a new wardrobe. I'm a realist and I understand that people charge extra when it comes to weddings and that flowers are expensive but for something that is just going to be held for maybe an hour then disregarded on a far table I am not happy to pay a large amount of money for. Who goes and smells the bouquets or the table flowers, NO ONE, they are purely there just for visual appeal. So I decided screw it, I would rather make my own and pay 1/8 of the price. All I needed was the visual appeal, so I chose to use foam roses. Yes my bridesmaid turned their noses up at the idea of fake flowers, but hey all up we spent around $12 grand on our wedding, whereas they spent easily near $50 grand. The money we saved has gone towards amazing holidays and being able to buy our first home. When it comes to weddings perspective is something easily lost and forgotten. What would you choose: spending $1000 on flowers that will wilt and decay in a few days or a weekend holiday, where flights, accommodation, food and spending money could all be paid for. Yep I chose the holidays, i would rather spend the $$ on creating more beautiful memories than just living in one day.

Card Box - Decorating on a budget

This originally was a hat box covered with a black and white print, I bought it for under $10 at a $2 shop. We were having a beach themed engagement party and I needed a card box to match all the table decorations. I covered the box with brown paper (bought on a roll for $3 was about 5m long) and used double sided tape to stick it on. I then decorated with ribbons and used double sided tape again to stick them down. I had to cut a slit in the top for cards, which I then lined with a ribbon for presentation. On the day I sat some shells on top and our lovely Kombi toy. 

If you would like more information on this project please comment below. Thanks