DIY Paper Flowers

Tom and I had our engagement pictures taken this afternoon at Portland Headlight. The weather was a bit chilly, but that just meant I had an excuse to snuggle up close to him. It was perfectly clear, and the sky was a nice shade of blue. I love our photographer, he was very professional, but we also seemed to "click" really well. The photographer said that he will post our pictures online in about a week, I can't wait to see how they turned out.

In other news, I have noticed on many of the wedding message boards that brides are opting to make their own flowers instead of having real ones. Some of the alternatives to real flowers are really cute, for example, I have seen brooch bouquets, butterfly bouquets, and bouquets made of fabric flowers. As far as our wedding goes, we are having the real thing. I love roses, Rose is my middle name, and I want to be carrying real roses when I walk down the aisle. On the flip side, I am a crafty person, and I wanted to try my hand at making "flowers."

In my internet surfing one night I came across The Scrap Shoppe and directions to make "ceramic" paper roses I followed the directions exactly, and created a bunch of lavender roses, just like the ones that will be in my bouquet. Then I got creative, and decided to make some leaves to go along with the roses. To make the leaves, I prepared the cardstock the exact same way as described in the directions above, and then I simply cut out leaf shapes once the cardstock was dry. To add more dimension, I folded each leaf in half and creased down the middle.

For the three-rose piece, I cut a strip of left over lavender cardstock and simply attached the roses and leaves with hot glue.

I think I am going to attach pin backs to the back of my roses so they can be worn as corsages at the rehearsal dinner. Right now my plan is that I will wear the three-rose corsage and my mother will wear the single rose. This project is simple enough that I am considering making some more corsages for my bridesmaids, but we will have to see where that goes.  The roses are absolutely gorgeous in person, they mimic the look of porcelain roses.

Did you use handmade flowers in your wedding?