A beautiful and different wedding bouquet

My little sister Momtaz had her big day in December and what a day it was, full of everything that celebrates her amazing personality and love of handmade things, which she has described on her blog. Early on in the planning stages she had asked me to make a bouquet. There was nothing unusual about that as I had made my own and all the flower bouquets for my other sisters.

Then she said she didn't want real flowers but wanted to use beads, buttons and bits of old jewellery and that they would be donated by her friends! So there wasn't really going to be a way of planning it yet but I was excited by the idea! Truth is I hadn't really done any beading or jewellery making for years and I certainly wasn't a dab hand with a pair of pliers but I love a challenge so ofcourse promised her it would be fabulous!!

I did have a collection of photos for the work in progress for the bouquet but unfortunately I had a problem with my old laptop and lost them all ! ( I know.. I know.. I must always back up.. back up.. and back up some more!!) I did want to share how I had made the bouquet from start to finish but instead I can show you how fabulous it looked on the day and some photos of the stages involved.

There were all sorts of exciting things to work with: strings of seed beads, metal beads, wooden beads, enamelled flowers and lovely vintage buttons, pearly shiny beads and a gorgeous shimmery butterfly brooch which a  friend had bought be years ago but was now damaged and couldn't be worn.

 a wonderful mix of jewellery and beads from broken sets donated by friends

fabulous clear vintage buttons from Momtaz's charity shop button box

some jewellery donated by me

some of the donated brooches, necklaces and beads

Rather than try the usual way of wiring on beads and buttons into a classic floral type arrangement, I decided to try something different  and I mean really different. I wanted a wow factor. Crystal bouquets are always amazing and have a wow factor but I had a surprise lined up, my bouquet was going to smell nice too!! For this I used the scented wicker circles you find in pot pourri mixes. I had no idea how I would hold these up in a bouquet arrangement, at first I thought I could probably join them to a stick of some kind.

Then soon after, oneday, on my way back from the school walk via Tesco's car park I found the perfect object! A brand new looking head massager! Just lying on the floor on the pavement. At first I walked past but them I had a light bulb moment and rescued it and used it as the structure to hold the balls in place!

this is the head massager!

This formed the supporting structure of the bouquet which held balls which were covered with beads and buttons, here are photos showing the early stages of the scented wicker balls.

The whole process worked quite well and though fiddly in places was well worth it. I also used feathers to create the final look that the bride wanted.

Here are some fantastic photos of the bouquet on the day! You can see some of the beads, buttons and the mohair yarn that I wrapped around the stem too.

 picture by Alexandre Pichon



picture by Alexandre Pichon

I'm very pleased with the way it turned out !! Ofcourse this bouquet couldn't be thrown up in the air, so for that there was another amazing bouquet to make. This time Momatz let me design whatever I liked so naturally I chose a peacock theme with a bit of pink, purple and winter wonderland white and a bit of sparkle.

Picture by Jolekha Shasha

I was also very happy with the fresh flowers bouquet, the feathers and ting ting and purple chiffon and diamonte detail were perfect and what's even more perfect was all the bits were already available at home in my craft box and the flowers were a few stems from a very cheap market bouquet which I bought for myself!