Playing with blooms

Sunday afternoon, during my team's game, I decided to tackle the beautiful blooms that had been in my kitchen for over a day. I'd cut them and put them in flower food and water, but now it was time to see if I could mold them into something usable in the wedding. That was the point, after all. I'd hoped for help, but help was unavailable. So, I stepped up to the plate, determined that I was not to be foiled by flowers.


I started by prepping the roses. I removed all the lower greenery from them first. Next, all the thorns. In case you don't already know.....flowers from wholesalers (online or otherwise) are not prepped in any way. They still have all the thorns they had when they were in the ground. Don't let them intimidate you though, and don't buy a silly de-thorning tool. That's just a waste of money. They snap off. Honestly, they do. Place the thorn between your thumb and pointer, rotate following the stem, and SNAP! You'll be holding the entire thorn separate from the rose. Last, I removed the protective outer petals around the rose buds. They intentionally leave a few petals that are not-too-terribly pretty to protect the rose and take the bulk of the damage in shipping. Tug gently and they come right off.

I finally had pretty roses to work with. Now....the Bells of Ireland. They're so pretty, and they symbolize luck. (Orange roses symbolize passion, incidentally.) I so wanted them in the bouquet, but they simply look horrible with the roses. So, I nixed the Bells from the bouquet, but I found another purpose for them. You'll see them tomorrow.

I was left with the delicious Cherry Brandy roses and red hypericum berries, which are coffee beans if you did not know. I made two bouquets. One had 11 roses and the other 14. Each had one stem of berries. The 14-stem bouquet had a much more appealing shape. This was far more because it was the second bouquet I have ever tried to make as opposed to the first bouquet I'd ever tried to make! Experience truly pays off.


And here are some things that I learned:

• Floral wire is going to work better than floral tape on the bouquets, but the tape will likely be handy for boutonnieres.
• An extra set of hands would be phenomenal. As would an extra set of eyes. So, I think on the real flowers, someone simply has to be there, even if it's just as a second pair of hands and eyes that isn't actually making anything. I literally took the bouquet into the other room where a friend was gaming with my betrothed via web cam for opinions.
• Sharper scissors or sheers would be a nice thing to own.
• Do not use wired ribbon. It just doesn't wrap smoothly, and it's all I had. The look was far too stiff.

And that's it. They took me about an hour and a half to make, prep work included. I'm quite pleased. What do you think???

Photos by me from the top: finished bouquets, 11 rose bouquet, testing the "size" of the 11 rose bouquet, 14 rose bouquet, and both bouquets (11 on the left, 14 on the right)