Wedding Wednesday: DIY Boutonniere

This post could also be subtitled “Or, the Boutonniere’s That Never Made It”.

If you took a look at this wedding photo of ours, you’ll notice the guys have adorable yellow craspedia (aka, billy buttons) in their jacket pockets.  Well, that was not the plan.  In fact, I spent an  afternoon before the wedding envisioning and creating some super cute boutonnieres for the guys to wear.  So, while we were getting ready on the day of the wedding, I was looking all over for this giant zip-lock bag that I had them in…nowhere to be found!!!  And I had seen them a few hours earlier that day, while we were setting up the reception area and unloading boxes of things. I had left them on a table.

Well time was now running short, and nobody could find them.  So one of my bridesmaids came up with the quick solution of tying a small bunch of the craspedia together with twine and just tucking them in the guys’ pockets. Well, it turned out really cute and I forgotabout the whole thing. Until the next morning while packing up the reception decor. I found them in a box that was set aside as if they were trash! Boo.

Anyways, here they are!

Materials:
Craspedia (dried)
Spotted Guinea Feathers
Faux Foxtails (har…) – I got mine at Michaels
Twine
Scissors
Small glue gun

For each boutonniere you will need 1 craspedia stem, 1 foxtail stem and 2 guinea feathers.

1. Trim the stems of the craspedia and foxtail so they are about 4-5 inches long.  You will trim the excess stems off later, but they are easier to handle when they are long (TWSS).

2.  Remove the “fluff” off your two feathers as shown in the photo below. Make sure you don’t rip off the shaft (“stem”) of the feather.

3.  Cut a piece of twine. You won’t need much but cut a strand about 6″.

4. Gather your 2 feathers and 2 stems together so they are bunched up however you would like them to look.  This can be really tricky and tedious, but after you glue the twine on you can adjust them a little to make it look prettier.

5. Put a dab of glue right above where you are holding the bunch together, and place one end of the twine on.  Let dry for a minute, this will help you control the rest of the wrapping.

6. Continue to wrap the twine around the stems downward, adding a few small dabs of glue as you go.  You will probably need to wrap about 1-2 inches of the stems so you can handle the boutonierres and pin them to coats.

Ta-da! Rinse and repeat! All mine were a little different from each other, but it doesn’t matter whatsoever.