DIY Coffee Filter Rose Bouquets

This post isn't a tutorial.....but more of a pat on the back, 

A "You can do it I believe in you!"......

 "It IS possible!"......

"If I can do it you can do it!"....kind of post

As you probably already guessed....me and The Boy aren't made of money.

Nope.

 We are middle class America at it's finest.... where our idea of splurging is buying laundry detergent that isn't Great Value brand  (oh how I long for the smell of Gain)

Here is one of my all time my  favorite moments on Roseanne....one of the greatest shows to ever represent us normal folk!

Middle class was fun!

you get the picture....we aren't exactly rolling in the cash

So when it came to our wedding I tried to save as much as I could by doing stuff myself

Have you seen how ridiculous the prices on bouquets can be?  It's insane!

So for a while I toyed with the idea of buying fowers in bulk from either Sam's Club or Costco and putting together the bouquets ourselves they day before

But then I started getting nervous. I don't know much about flowers to begin with....then I started wondering how I was going to store them and keep them fresh

Then the idea of doing the flowers, the rehearsal dinner (which I cooked for myself..with help) and baking 200 cupcakes for our favors, and hauling my mass ton of shit to the venue....all in one day?

I knew it wasn't happening.  And I'm the type of person who needs to leave myself time for a Plan B if something doesn't work out...and I knew there was a HUGE chance of something going wrong 

So after alot of research...I decided on coffee filter roses

Yes.  Coffee filters

 

I got lucky and found a girl on The Knot classifieds board who had already started doing them....and then ended up decided to scratch the idea all together

She had been planning to use them for EVERYTHING at her wedding....bouquets, centerpieces.....everywhere.  She quickly realized that was far too ambitious, especially considering she had no help because she lived away from family

She had bought the filters, traced the petals, and already begun cutting some out when she decided to stop

I bought them from her for just a little more than she bought the supplies....but it saved me tons of time because she had already done so many of the preliminary steps.  I basically just had to assemble and paint them

Like I said, I don't have a tutorial but here are the two that I used

This one from Martha Stewart

http://www.marthastewart.com/266346/paper-roses

And this one.....

http://www.emmalee-design.com/art-design/coffee-filter-rose-tutorial/

Because one is video and the other is pictures I think it helps to use both....it makes it even more clear

I assembled the majority of them myself and then had a painting party with my sisters 

I stuck them in styrofoam to dry  

I don't have pictures but I'll explain how I actually made the bouquets after all the flowers were done

*I cut PVC pipe to the height I wanted the bouquets to be and were comfortable to hold....I think I cut them 6 inches for the bridesmaids and 7 inches for mine...I wanted mine to be a smidge taller

*I spraypainted the PVC pipe brown because I knew I would be wrapping them in brown ribbon but the ribbon was sort of see through

*I inserted the flowers into the pipe and hot glued them in place.  I used 9 for the bridesmaids and 18 for mine.  Since the flowers are on wire you can glue the wire to the inside walls of the PVC and bend the tops of the flowers around as needed to fill it out nicely for a round shape

*I inserted a few fake leaves as well for a little bit of filler

*Wrap the ribbon around the PVC, gluing in place as you go.  I used glittery ribbon so I covered it in a few coats of Mod Podge after it was in place to keep from getting glitter all over our hands....worked perfect!

This is me scolding him for stepping on my dress ;)

I found some cute rhinestone letter pins at Hobby Lobby that I clipped onto each of the bridesmaids bouquets.....thought it gave it a nice touch

 Sorry for posting more picture than you ever wanted to see in your life....but I'm pretty proud of them

I think they photographed really well!

Oh...and I even made a mini bouquet of just 3 flowers for one of the flower girls.  I'm not a petal throwing kinda gal

So here's what I have to say as my words of advice and encouragement.  If you try it out don't get too discouraged....it took 3 tries before it even remotely resembled a flower....then a few more before they looked good.  But when you get it....you get it....and then you can keep pumping them out pretty easily. I would just veg out in front of the TV and made them while I watched marathons

It's hard for me to gauge how long it actually took me because I worked on them off and on for 3 months....sometimes going weeks without doing anything. 

They are most definitely a labor of love....they are time consuming and much more effort than picking what you want out of a book.....but they are soooooooooo much cheaper!  I think I paid under $50 to make 5 bouquets and one mini bouquet.  And that is leaving some wiggle room.  I used 40% off coupons at Michael's for most of the supplies

Aside from the mass money savings....you can keep them forever!

I was at my sisters the other day and took a picture of her bouquet she had on a shelf.....over a year later they still look great!

I came away feeling so proud of this project and the reactions from some of my guests when I told them I made them myself was priceless!  My high school Art teacher was quite impressed.....

Of course I tried to play it off all cool though and was like "Cool thanks....it was no big whoop.."

Meanwhile I was giddy on the inside

So if you're still weighing out your flower options....don't completely rule out a DIY approach.  I'm proof it is posible!