Hey Dinosaurs!
Today I'm bringing you a special DIY project that I absolutely loved making! If you saw some of the shots from
my wedding, you probably noticed that my bouquet was not made of real flowers, as it usually is. Instead, I decided to go for a unique, everlasting look and made my and my bridesmaids' bouquets out of ribbon!
This project took some time, but it was totally worth it. I had previously found
this tutorial from BurdaStyle, which inspired me to make the bouquet. The tutorial is fairly easy to follow, showing you how to make the individual ribbon flowers. Unfortunately that's all the tutorial offers, so when it came time to putting the flowers together into a bouquet, I was pretty much on my own.
So here is a little how-to into making the ribbon flowers into the bouquet! For my bridesmaids' bouquets, I used around 13 roses each, and for mine, I used around 22 roses. But these can be made however big/small you want!
Supplies Needed: Ribbon flowers (made from 1.5"ribbon), floral wire, floral tape, scissors, hot glue, 3/4" ribbon for wrapping, other decorative ribbon for outside wrapping (seen here 1" white ribbon), corsage pins (not pictured), and tulle (optional)
1. Begin by cutting out wire to a length slightly shorter than the tails on your ribbon flower and insert into the base of the rose. I recommend using the ribbon tail to wrap around the wire, especially if your wire is not very thick (like mine). If you want a shorter stem, just cut down the length of your ribbon tail.
2. Starting from the base of the rose bud, use floral tape to wrap around the ribbon tails and wire, creating a stem for your flower. Make sure to overlap your tape as you wind it around the wire. Continue all the way down until the bottom of the stem.
3. Once you've taped up all of your flowers, gather and arrange the together into a bouquet that you are happy with!
4. Beginning at the top, wrap floral tape around the entire bouquet stem, joining everything together. Tip: It may be difficult to hold everything together, I recommend using a rubber band to hold it together as you begin to wrap the floral tape.
5. Now comes time to add ribbon to the stem! I first began by adding a few strips vertically with hot glue, covering some of the outside stems that might be seen. After that, just wrap the base with your thin, dark ribbon, overlapping it as you go. I secured it with hot glue at the start and end.
6. Next, repeat with a wider or fancier ribbon, wrapping around the center of the stand, where you would hold the bouquet. I chose a ribbon that had dots on it, to go along with the polka dots in my dress!
7. For an extra touch (and maybe to cover up anything that doesn't look so great...), add corsage pins to the bottom of your stem. Warning, it may be a little difficult to push them into the bouquet.
8. Optional: If you want to add a touch of tulle, start by tying it around the top of the stem, then wrapping the tulle a few times around the bouquet. To secure, add corsage pins all around , keeping the tulle in place. For the bridesmaids' bouquets that were smaller, I could use 6" tulle, but for my bouquet that was much larger, I had to use wider fabric.
And you're done! Here is the final product, in action! It takes some time and patience, but is totally worth it in the end! You can play around with whatever colors and textures you want! I used satin ribbon for the teal and pink ribbon, and grosgrain for the purple. For all three bouquets I used a total of 10 rolls of ribbon! And since I could not dare part with my bouquet, I made an even smaller one, using just two colors, for the bouquet toss!
I hope you guys enjoyed this unique twist on the classic bridal bouquet! I'd love to hear if anyone gives it a try!
Thanks for reading!
<3
