Bridal Bouquet Tutorial

This weekend my husband, Mark and I got to re-live a bit of our wedding day, thanks to my friend Deborah Zoe Photo. Debbie is an amazingly talented photographer who I know thanks in part to the fact that our husbands shared a rich (I chose my adjective carefully here...many other, less "family friendly" words could be inserted here) history of living together in an all-guys house during their college days. We have a sort of bloggy-friendship that I love: it's so encouraging to know other independent business owners who are talented, generous and just plain FUN. Debbie is one of those people.

Long story short, we won a photo shoot with her, a sort of "wedding do-over" that gave me the chance to get back in my dress and Mark a chance to get out of his Carharts (I'm still not sure which one I was more excited about.) Debbie is the consummate professional; I mean seriously, I felt like I was on America's Next Top Model: "Now, dip your chin. Ok, look up. Perfect." So fun! She even laughed politely at my husbands "GQ" face.

For the shoot I made a couple "prop" bouquets. Arranging bridal bouquets is really one of my favorite things to do, I love taking raw materials and putting them together in a way that makes you go: "wow." The bouquets I made for the shoot weren't as filled-out as I might normally make a real bridal bouquet, but for prop purposes they worked. (While the pictures I took won't make you go "wow", the ones Debbie took will.)

What's great about making bouquets is that they are really quite easy to do, and even if you aren't arranging flowers for a wedding you can easily follow the same principles to make a lovely centerpiece for you dining room table.

Here's what I started with:

1) Floral tape (L.O.V.E floral tape, its stretchy, sticky and forgiving)

2) Flowers (I picked up a couple $5 bunches from Walmart..tried to keep the props inexpensive.)

3) Greens (I had a combo of fake greenery (dusty miller leaves, eucalyptus and twigs from a bush outside.)

4) Floral pins

5) Wrapping materials (ribbon, fabric, in this instance I used yarn)

6) Cutting Board, paring knife, large kitchen knife and scissors.

Floral Tape.

 Floral Pins.

 Step 1: Trim and clean the stems. Remove excess leaves from the portion you will be working with. This makes it much easier to work with the bouquet and keeps it from getting too bulky.

 Tulips cleaned and ready to use.

Step 2) Create a small cluster of two to three stems and some greenery.

Secure with floral tape.

 Until you have a small bundle like this:

 Step 3) Add in more stems: both blooms and greenery. Secure these with floral tape.

 Check the bouquet from the top to ensure that you are constructing a "round" bouquet. Fill in where necessary.

 Step 4) Continue to build he bouquet securing all additional stems and greenery with floral tape as you go.

 Check again for symmetry and "roundness" from the top.

Step 5) Trim ends of stems with large kitchen knife. 

 Step 6) Using either fabric or ribbon cover floral tape and secure covering with a floral pin, pressed down into the group of stems (if you press directly across, the sharp end of the pin will come out the other side...ouch!)

 Add decorative elements by layering different colors and textures.

 Step 6 Alternative) If you are using ribbon or yarn that requires wrapping there's a bit of a technique to creating a "clean." Starting from the bottom, extend the ribbon all the way up the handle of the bouquet leaving plenty of "slack."

 Start wrapping from the bottom, covering the floral tape and the "slack" as you go.

 Once you get to the top of the bouquet, tie off the ends and make a small bow or secure the loose ends with a floral pin.

Here's a look at one of the final bouquets:

Can't wait to see Deborah Zoe Photo's version of the bouquets. Keep an eye out on her blog for the photos!

--Sarah

A Laundry Bag

Whenever we travel (which really isn't that often now that we're back on the East Coast with family in driving distance), I like to keep the dirty clothes separate from the clean ones. Not only does it make the whole "living out of a suitcase" think easier, but it also simplifies the unpacking process once we get home.

For the longest time I've simply piled dirty clothes to one side of the suitcase or stashed them in a separate pocket of the duffle bag, or if we happen to be staying in a hotel, used their plastic laundry sack. And every time we get home I think: I need to get/make a travel laundry bag, but I promptly get caught up into the swirl of life and forget until the next time we go away.

Yesterday I finally did it. I took a piece of funky/ugly (I can't decide which. Some days I think this fabric is cool and funky and other days it strikes me as ugly) polyester that somehow made it into my "random fabric stash" and made a travel laundry bag.

Here it is: funky? or ugly? 

It took all of 10 minutes. And from now on our dirty clothes will be nicely separated from our clean ones and when we get home all I have to do is grab the funky/ugly bag and head to the laundry room.

Here's how I did it:
1) For the drawstring pocket: folded down about an inch along the top edge and ironed flat:

2) Folded down again about 1 1/2 inches and ironed flat

3) Unfolded the second ironed pre-fold, leaving the inch fold in place and then pined a small decreasing fold on either end (allows for finished look at the end of the drawstring pocket)

 4)Sewed down these decreasing folds the folded down the second pre-fold to create a pocket. Then Sewed along the bottom edge of that, creating the pocket.

 5) I folded the fabric in half, wrong sides facing each other and sewed an "L" shape along the raw edges  (the fold formed the other side of the bag).

 6) I cut two long stripes of two-inch wide fabric, folded and ironed them into each other and sewed along the edge to create the drawstring.

And here's the finished travel laundry bag:

You could use these instructions to make any size drawstring bag. Simple and easy!

--Sarah

Easy Christmas Crafts

At this time last year I had four weeks 'till my due date. I was eight months pregnant, had just been laid off from my teaching job and had already washed and folded and organized all of Sophia's clothes. I had nothing to do and was in serious nesting mode. I focused all that energy in to crafty Christmas projects: making felt ornaments was one of those projects. They were a perfect portable craft (I could take them to the Dr.s office and work on them while I waited) and I ended up giving many of them as gifts (tied to gifts like a hang tag, hung around the neck of a bottle of wine, tied to a gift basket...you get the picture).

I used my cookie cutters as templates. I have a small but eclectic mix of cookie cutters that includes a cactus, lobster and lighthouse. I bought them one Christmas in homage to our roots on the East Coast and our time spent living in Arizona.

I bought a large selection of 8x11 pieces of felt and box of 38 different colored embroidery floss. I don't remember the total cost, but it wasn't much. 

 I traced the cookie cutters onto the felt with a dark marker, cut two pieces out (often in complementary contrasting colors, like bright green and dark green) and then used a blanket stitch to stitch the two pieces together. If you don't know how to do a blanket stitch you can find a great tutorial here.

 Cut and pinned, before stitching.

 After stitching.

 Christmas Cactus.

 Cowboy.

 Star.

The sky is the limit when it comes to things you can make! Have fun! And email us your creations so we can feature them on our blog!

--Sarah