Adventures in Crafting: Preserving a bouquet and boutonniere

I love crafting and I always have.
When I was a young child, I used to make friendship bracelets. I even spent a couple of summers making and selling them at the park.  I did hair wraps too.

I've done origami. Most commonly I make hundreds of thousands of tiny stars to keep my hands busy when I'm doing other things.

I've painted (I wish I was better at it) and spent time sketching.

I've made tons of presents over the years.
I've crafted practical items (for example, a spice jar "rack" for the kitchen).

A couple of years ago, I started making mermaid bras and floral crowns.  Not long after that I started making holiday wreaths.  It was the beginning of my small side business and little etsy shop Fairy Tales by Ali.  Since we're coming to Halloween and Holiday season, I should be crafting more to sell!

Even for our spring wedding, I made all the bouquets, boutonnieres, hair pieces and centerpieces. I really enjoy making things and I also really like saving money (flowers are expensive!). I spent hours and hours crafting for the 6 months leading up to the big day and it was so worth it!  I went a little crazy and decided o make most of the flowers from scratch and only supplement with store bought silks. It was time-consuming but ultimately gorgeous and just how I imagined.

I really enjoy hands on projects.  I love making but also the creative process of trying to figure out how to make something.  I love getting an idea in my head and then bringing it to life.

I even love to get Baros involved in the process.  It was fun having him at Michael's with me to figure out the couple of projects I'll be doing this month (check out this post to see our adulting adventure).

The first project is one I've been contemplating for a while.
We had our big wedding with friends and family in April but we actually got married in a court ceremony last November (it's almost been a year!!  so crazyyyy!!)  At our spring wedding, I made the bouquet but for our court wedding we actually got a traditional bouquet and boutonniere from the amazing florist down the block.

It was beautiful and wild with different shades of pink roses and non traditional greenery.  We were
so happy with our bit of bright colors on that rainy November Monday.

We knew that we wanted to preserve those memories so we hung the bouquet and boutonniere upside
down to dry and keep.  But over the last 10 months, I've  been realizing a small problem, well, 2 actually: space and the precariousness of dried roses.

Space is always an issue in our small apartment.  So the bouquet and boutonniere wound up living on my crafting shelves, however, this leads to the second problem.  My crafting shelves are often an explosion of projects and crafting materials. There are piles of materials and one wrong move can send things tumbling.... I'm working on it though!  But flowers, dried flowers especially, are delicate.  One tumble would destroy the flowers and/or leaves.

I've been trying to figure out the best way to keep them safe.  Putting them in a vase still wouldn't protect them from a tumble.  I saw a really cool project preserving them in a bubble like globe... but that project seemed time consuming and difficult.

The project that struct me as most efficient and also lovely was using a shadow box.  A shadow box is, essentially, a picture frame except it is deep so allows for 3D projects.

Our Shadow box, plus my paper options and glues

So at Michael's we picked up a 10x10 extra deep (4.5") shadow box.  We could have gotten a bigger box but I liked the way this one looked (also I periodically have spatial issues and imagined more fitting in there than actually did).  I almost wish we had found a larger one with the same depth so I could have added a picture from the court wedding.  But I'll make some prints to display the shadow box with instead.

When planning this shadow box, I realized that I didn't want to put the whole bouquet in as is.  It's a

The boutonniere plus bouquet dried

pretty tall bouquet and just not as pretty from the side as it's from the top.

Therefore, I decided to deconstruct the bouquet and put it back together in the shadow box. Baros was a little sad about this, but I couldn't figure out a better way to display the flowers.

So a couple of nights ago I lined the shadow box with scrapbook paper cut down to size.  It was an unnecessary step but I didn't love the black background with the flowers.

Next, Baros helped me figure out the placement of his boutonniere.  Originally, we created a mini platform out of foam and then covered it in ribbon from the bouquet to give the boutonniere a little more height in the box. Then as I was closing the box, I realized it would be better to have it closer to the glass and more separate from the bouquet itself.

From there I took the entire bouquet apart and separated the flowers from the leaves and filler.  I cut the stems down but not too short.  It's always better to make something too long than too short. I saved the stems to place into the box also.

Slowly, I organized all of the flowers on the board without glue. I used some foam to stand some of the stems. Then after arranging, trimming and changing angles I started gluing.

It took me a little while to get things just as I wanted but finally I finished and I love how it looks.  Now we can put it on the wall and have our memories safe from harm.

The final product

I'm so happy with this project.  It was an inexpensive way to preserve a moment from one of the
happiest days of our lives.  And it looks beautiful!And it'll help us remember one of the best days ever!

The struggle was real as I attempted
to photograph glass!!

Such a beautiful happy day!

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