caitlin elizabeth photography | just for fits and giggles | wedding DIY | DIY boutineer

my aunt betsy is has a way with flowers - i love when it's her month to do the altar flowers for church  because they're always so attractive.  some folks just have a knack for that kind of thing.

generally, i'm not one of those people.

it's been so warm lately that the flowers are blooming at the house!  so i decided to try my hand at making a boutineer :)  i used things that i found in the yard and in my craft box for this little DIY boutineer project.  brides be warned: i don't know next to nothing about flowers or how you're actually supposed to put these things together, i'm not claiming to know the first thing about floral arrangements, i just thought this would be a fun project!  

i used my trusty hot glue gun, twine, a clothespin and miscellaneous plant life i found in my back yard.

there was a bit of a frost the night before, so the majority of the camellia flowers were actually very brown and yucky looking, but i found this little bud that i thought might work well:

  

i think this is cedar - not all of the tree had these little blue berry-like things on it, but i liked the colors so i decided to use one of the sprigs with the berries!

i cut 3 separate sprigs and hot glued them together:

i then hot glued the flower to the front and then wrapped twine around the bottom to hide said hot glue (which at this point was gushing out all over everywhere from gluing 3 sprigs and the flower together)

then i hot glued everything to a clothes pin!  not the most sophisticated thing in the world, but i think it works.  this could definitely be incorporated into a more laid back wedding - nothing too fancy: a backyard, barefeet, tie optional for the groomsmen kind of wedding.

finished product! not too bad for my first attempt:

i didn't have access an attractive young man (will was working... sorry ladies) for me to put this on so i had to take a shirt and just hang it on the china cabinet haha

 

DIYers beware: you can't put the flower too far up the clothespin, otherwise it is too heavy and won't actually stand up.

and to top it all off: this bad boy has been in the fridge for 4 days and it doesn't look weepy at all (i don't think that's a term used to describe things that grow, but you know what i mean) so you could make them in advance and they'll keep for a bit!

so much crafting on the blog this week!  i'm ok with it though :)