WEDDING BOUQUET GIFT

Happy Friday.. I don't know about you, but this week has been a wacky one. 

When I got married (almost 9 years ago!), my Mom surprised me by having my bouquet and my husband's boutonniere dried and framed.  It is really beautiful and it makes me smile every time I see it on the wall.  She took it to someone professional and it has this amazing oval bubble frame.  WOW.

When a friend recently got married, I just knew I had to try to recreate her bouquet for their wedding gift.  She has noticed mine hanging on the wall and commented on it numerous times.  Do you think she was hinting?  Nah...

After the wedding, I stole her bouquet (above) as well as 2 of the bridemaids', just to make sure I had enough flowers.  I followed this video on how to dry flowers. 

Some tips I discovered along the way:
Do make make you have an airtight container.
Do follow the length of recommended time to dry the flowers. Not all of my flowers turned out because I let it dry longer than recommended. 

After the flowers were dried, I purchased a 12x12 frame.  The square is a better option, if an oval frame is out of your price range.  I used a plain piece of 12x12 piece of scrapbook paper that went with the colors in her wedding.

I arranged the flowers in a circle on the paper until it looked like a bouquet.  I wish I had pictures of this process, but blogging was not in my vocabulary at that time.  NO! really?  Yes, I had not yet discovered this amazing world. 

All I did after this was purchase a can of spray glue.  And carefully sprayed under the flowers directly onto the paper.  Be CAREFUL.  Glue will get on your hands and the delicate flowers can stick to you.  They will rip/tear and be ruined.  But hey, no hot glue for this one, people.  That means no burned fingers!  Amazing for me since I have a tendency to be injured.   

Once I had the flowers glued down I took the entire paper outside and gave it a light couple of coats with a satin lacquer spray to help the flowers hold the color.

Here's how it looks today. 

It really is a memory preserved and I felt so happy that it turned out as intended to give as a wedding gift.  Have you given a memorable DIY gift lately? I would love to hear about it!

Have a great weekend folks!  Thanks so much for stopping by my little corner of the world.  Please leave me a comment or send an email to say HI!