...Something Coordinated: Anti-Flower Bride

I am an anti-flower bride. This doesn't mean I don't like flowers. Love them. They're beautiful. It just means that I don't see them (and the price tag they carry) as a necessary addition to our wedding. That being said, I still want my bridesmaids to have bouquets and I am definitely a pro-decor bride. So while I don't intend on going to a florist for the big day, I have a lot of things I want to try out in the "flower alternative" category. Thanks to some awesome people and a few cool internet finds, I have a folder full of "D-I-Y-W Trials" sitting on my desk at home. That's where this post comes in.

Persuing the dollar store the other night, I saw that they had a pretty big selection of crafty items. When I found the floral tape and foam, I knew I had to try something! For the low low price of $4.28, I took home two fake flower bouquets, a pair of floral foam half circles and a set of styrofoam balls. Both types of foam were on the smaller side and not necessarily what I would be using, but, for the sake of shaking off a little creative sparkle, they worked just great!

First, I took all the little flowers off of the big stems. Since they were cheap fake flowers, this was easy. I venture to guess that more expensive bouquets would take a bit more effort to "de-flower".

Then, I offered the de-flowered stems to Pete so he would be occupied while chewing them and leave me alone while I was working. Success.

I started working with the styrofoam ball first to make a mini-pomander ("Kissing Ball"). I started at one end of the ball and worked my way around, making sure to stick the flowers in, overlapping, so that none of the styrofoam showed. At times, the styrofoam got flaky and was a bit tricky to work with, but, if you pressed the flowers in hard enough, they ended up sticking. This took me 2/3 of the way through my DVR'd episode of Glee. At the end of it all, I was very pleased with the finished product, and happy at my accomplishment!

But I'm a junkie and I needed more. So I whipped out one of the half circles of Floral Foam. WOW was there a difference! The flowers stuck in the floral foam easier, and stayed without any trouble. I barely got through 1/2 of Tosh.0 before being done with that. Though it looked very similar to the round kissing ball, the half moon shape let it sit on a ledge-type surface. I liked that. I wrote it down in my journal to remember. "Half-Moon Good."

A great experience all in all. This weekend, I am going to try to make ones with fabric, to see which I like better. Then, perhaps in the near future, I will upgrade to realistically sized balls. (tee hee)