Bajorek-Waugh wedding

So, those of you following my progress for this wedding might be wondering what happened. Well, the bouquet was made without a hitch, all the hair pieces were great and the mom's loved their corsages. Here are some pics.

Each of these flowers is mounted on a seperate hairpin.

we even tucked in a little blue flower for the "something blue"

Michael's mom Anna loved her dogwood corsage.

I had the pleasure of pinning the boutineer on myself and I think it came out great.

Syl, had her pink lilies and they really matched her outfit.

Here's a closeup of the bouquet made with tiger lilies, dogwoods and asters.

Sara wore a little apricot colored flower in her hair. It was mounted on a bobby pin.

I chose to wear a headband that had a dogwood bloom mounted on it.

Here's one of the flower girls sporting another flowered headband.

Bachelor Buttons for Nicole

As I've been preparing for the big move Texas, one project I had to complete was to clean up my craft area. During one of my cleaning sessions I came across a stem of bachelor buttons I made a few years ago. I had never been quite satisfied with the piece or had any specific use for it. The moment I saw it though, I knew just what to do with it. An acquaintance of mine was getting married and I had wanted to gift her a little something for the wedding. I just knew these purple flowers would be the perfect item for her hair.

First I took the stem apart and to end up with some large flowers and some smaller ones. I used the smaller ones and mounted them onto some bobby pins. Then I fortified them with a hint of glue and viola. Simple hair accessory for a touch of color and a hint of nature.

Finished lillies

All the parts for one lily; six petals, one set of stamens, thin wire.

I used the thinner wire to secure and brace all of the petals together in sets, an inner and outer with three petals in each set.

After all six of the petals are secure to teh center, I add a thick floral wire and wrap with floral tape.

The next step is to gently bend each petal back.

In the box above you can see the flowers that will make up the bouquet for my friend; tiger lillies, asters and dogwoods.

daisy headbands

dogwoods

I finally received the beads I was waiting for to create the dogwood blooms for the bouquet. It was surprisingly difficult for me to find just the right color only being able to view the beads online. It seems that bead colors just don't show true over the computer. Anyway, the colors arrived and I began the dogwood making process.

I followed the general pattern for a beaded dogwood bloom from The Art of French Beaded Flowers: Creative Techniques for Making 30 Beautiful Blooms by Carol Benner Doelp . Of course I added my own twists in some places.

Here you can see that I have made all of the petals to be used in the bouquet flowers, but have yet to make the centers.

I left extra wire hanging from the centers and used it as the assmbly wire for connecting all of the petals to create the blooms.

I also made the corsage for Michael's mother out of dogwoods. I used a slightly different colored cream bead instead of the white for the bouquet and a darker green for the center as well as the sepals.

Check previous post to see mother of the bride corsage.

Pink Lillies

These little pink lillies make up the corsage for the mother of the bride. The color doesn't show up exactly right. Even though they look orangey in the pitures they are actually a shiny light pink with purple accent. The stamen are made with amethyst colored swarovski crystal.

Kiss my Asters

Some of you may remember that not too long ago I posted about some asters I had in process. These are going to be used in the wedding bouquet that I am creating. Below you can see the pile I had of all of the petal layers awaiting the centers that I had yet to create.

After we returned from our road trip, the beads I was hoping for had arrived and were waiting for me on the porch. In an evening of relaxing and decompressing from riding in the car I worked diligently on the centers you see posted below. I used a lemon yellow Czech glass bead and 26 gague copper wire. I started with a one bead center and made three passes so I ended with 6 rows per center, leaving the wires.

The next step was to attach the centers to the petals to complete this stage of the flower. I made one center per set of petals. First I bent the remaining wires on the centers so that they were behind the center or perpendicular to the rows of beads.

Next I wrapped the center's wires around the loop of the petals so that the center is now securly attached to the petals.

I turn over the flower to make sure it seems centered enough and then tighten the wires.

Next, I bring all of the wires together so they meet in as close to the center of the flower as possible.


Then holding all of the wires tightly I twist them together to create the stem base.

And viola, a whole bundle of asters ready to be used in the final bouquet.

Next step will be to finish the lillies and then onto the dogwoods, boutineer and mother's corsages.