Friday 19 August 2011

How To Make A Paper Flower Boutonniere or Corsage


Inspired by Martha, I made boutonnieres and corsages for all members of our wedding party from tissue paper and wire. Let me show you how.



Need To Have:

cardboard
ruler
pencil
scissors
tissue paper
a ball-shaped object, ca. 3 cm in diameter
artificial stamens
green florist tape
florist stub wire (ca. 20 gauge)
wire pliers
some woody herbs (optional)
brooch pins


Need To Do:


First, make a 12.5 cm x 6 cm cardboard template. You will need this to cut out the petals to size.

For one flower, you will need 5 petals. Use your cardboard template and a pencil to draw 5 rectangles onto tissue paper in the colour of your choice. You can fold the paper into 5 layers if you like and cut out 5 petal shapes at once.


To form each petal, wrap your tissue paper halfway around a ball-shaped object. I used a little styrofoam ball for this, but you could also use a marble, a bouncing ball, or any other object that is about 3 cm in diameter. Twist the ends of the paper together like you were wrapping a piece of candy. Be quite delicate with this and careful not to rip the paper, but make sure that both ends are tightly twisted. Then carefully remove the ball.


After you have shaped each petal in this fashion, take one of the petals and about 8 - 12 of the articficial stamens and attach them to each other with florist tape. Add the petals one by one, until you end up with a flower shape. Don't worry if your flower looks a bit wonky at this stage, that can be rectified later.


Take a piece of stub wire and attach your flower to it, with the help of more florist tape. Cut the wire at the required length.

Cut off the twisty bits from the ends of your petals and arrange them in a nice blossom shape.


For our boutonnieres, I went out into the garden the day before the wedding and picked some rosemary, lavender and sage to attach to the paper flowers. I cut the herbs to the same length as the wire stem, stripped the lower leaves and attached them to the flower with the florist tape. this made the boutonnieres look more interesting and they also smelled really nice!

For the final step, take the brooch pin and attach it to the back of your creation, using the trusted florist tape. 

Et voilà! Your done!


Photobucket

P.S.: Keep your eyes peeled for the Wedding Month giveway. I will post the details later today!

© All The Live Long Day (unless otherwise stated)

1 comment:

  1. <Wow das sieht großartig aus und gar nicht so schwer!
    great tutorial, thanks for sharing! :)
    I always read your posts but have so little time at the moment:(
    lovely greetings
    JenMuna

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