DIY Brooch Bouquet

one of my favorite pics..we joke because of their 1920's theme that they look like mobsters. 

First off, is it Broach, or Brooch? This is another one of those words to add to my list of "I just can never get the spelling right, no matter how many times auto correct tells me it's wrong". Okay, now that that's off my chest and hopefully someone has corrected me, let's get on with it. 

On December 17th our oldest daughter got married. WHAT! Am I really old enough to have a married daughter? Certainly not! Well, apparently I am, because she is. It was a beautiful wedding and despite looking back and saying things like "oh, I didn't say hi to so and so", or "shoot, I didn't have the photographer take pictures of me with so and so and so and so". A few mis-communications here and there, it was a great day and evening. All that mattered was that my daughter and her "hubby" had a blast and I think they did...I'll post more on that day later.

This post is about her bouquet. She wanted to do a 1920's theme for her wedding and we thought a brooch (I looked up the proper spelling for this meaning) bouquet would be perfect. If you hit up Pinterest, there are about 1,000,001 ways they can be done with about as many DIY instructions. A lady on one of our local wedding FB pages sells them and they aren't cheap. So, we decided to just come up with our own. We began perusing garage sales, thrift stores, enlisting the help of others in our hunt for the perfect brooches. She found some beautiful roses at Michaels. Yes, fake, but absolutely stunning without looking "fake"..that is important. Once we had enough of everything, I set to work putting it together. I looked at a few videos but really just "winged" it (I don't think "wung it" is a phrase..lol). I'll try to convey as best as I can how I did this and I apologize the pictures aren't the best or there is a lack of them for certain steps. I was so focused on what I was doing (because of course even though she was engaged for a year, I didn't get the bouquet done till the week of the wedding) that I would forget to take pictures along the way, or my one handed picture taking skills seriously are lacking. If you have any specific questions, please feel free to ask. If anything, maybe this will just give you some great ideas. 

Don't spend a lot on brooches. I refused to spend more than $5 a piece on them. It begins to add up especially if you buy here and there. Now, if you can afford it, then spend away, there are certainly some gorgeous ones out there. 

We hit a few sales at Michaels, so the roses were half off. Score! We went with off white because we wanted them to look vintage and not like "fake plastic flowers". 

I used some leftover gold Christmas ribbon that I had and it worked perfectly, along with a pearl and brooch necklace that someone had given us, on the stem. I'm not sure how much we spent total, but I'm pretty sure it was less than $50.

Items Needed:

Flowers (we used 8 large roses)
brooches (we used about 16)
Feathers for filler if desired
Ribbon for stem
floral tape
Floral wire (we used floral wire stems-18" 20gauge, and a thinner wire as well)

Instructions:

1. You want to first determine the shape of your bouquet. How tight? More spread out? Also the length you want the "handle" of the bouquet and cut stems accordingly. Keep in mind that the bouquet will "tighten" more when you begin wrapping it. 

We wanted to be able to showcase the fullness of the roses we chose so I went with a bit looser bouquet to start with (knowing it would tighten up a bit once wrapped)

2. Once you have a shape, wrap bouquet in a thinner wire to hold in place. I found it hard to keep things in place when they were loose. Bend or arrange flowers again if you need to.

 3. These are just some of the brooches we had to choose from. I held different ones up to the bouquet to see how they looked. We weren't going for the "all brooch" look so we didn't use them all. Some people want those to be the focal point...personal preference. We wanted a balance between them and the flowers. 

 4. Gather your materials in one place. I used some needle nose jewelry pliers to help with the wire.

 5. Here is where I'm sure there's a better method, but I didn't really find it. The only place I could really attach wire was to the "clasp" area on the brooch, but I found that the wire slid around (I just couldn't get it tight enough). I used two green stems per brooch, then wrapped those in a thinner silver wire. Then wrapped each in floral tape. Trim stems as needed to keep everything the same length.

here are two pictures of the bottoms of the brooches. Sorry they're not clear...that one handed photo taking thing again. This wasn't visible in the bouquet.

Again, the wire moves around so I tried hot gluing it to the brooch after I wrapped it the best I could around the clasp, which helped, then on some I wrapped floral tape around the clasp as well. 

 6. Once I had all my brooches wrapped I begin placing them in the bouquet. As I'd place them, I'd wrap them with floral tape to the main bouquet stem. This kept them in place but also added thickness to the bouquet base. 

 7. I then wrapped the entire stem in a few layers of floral tape.

 8. Here's a top view, once I had them in place. Again, I apologize for not having taken more pictures. I have a few leftover brooches so maybe at some point when I have time I'll try again and take pics. Or you can just google tutorials...lol.

 9. I used leftover Christmas ribbon and it worked perfectly. I first cut two long pieces to run lengthwise up each side to create the pieces at the top of bouquet (see below pic). I folded the top of each piece over and glued to make a nice edge. I also glued each vertical piece to the bottom of the bouquet to hold it in place. 

10. I then began wrapping the ribbon around the stem, gluing here and there to hold it in place. Once done I took the pearl/brooch piece of jewelry, wrapped it around the top and glued in place. 

 11. Here is it with the feathers placed throughout as well. Some closeups below. 

 There were a few smaller brooches that I just glued directly to the roses.

 12. I made the mistake of standing the bouquet on a piece of cardboard after I had placed hot glue on it and the cardboard stuck to the ribbon...oops. I remedied that by gluing a heart shaped button to the bottom. 

 My moms side of the family has a necklace that has been worn in weddings for over 60 years. My daughter wanted to wear a 7 ring necklace that belonged to my mom (who passed away 11 years ago), so we took the old family necklace and wove it in her bouquet. It fit her 1920's theme perfectly.

She also broke tradition and used a "guest globe" instead of a "guestbook" at the wedding. Loved that idea. 

Again, if I missed anything please ask and I will add it in. I'll do another wedding post soon. 

With Joy UNquenchable,