Special Bouquet- Practical Scrapper Jayma

Hi, Scrappers!

Practical Scrapper Jayma here to share with you how to create beautiful bridal and bridesmaid bouquets! What better tool to help me than my Cricut machine?! Follow along and I'll show you how to create your own.

Photo by Lauren Natalie Photography

One of my best friends got married last year. She loves books, and had run across this post from Valerie on 100layercake.com on creating storybook paper roses. She sent me the link and wondered if I'd be able to create something similar for her bridal bouquet.

The original flowers are absolutely gorgeous, but would require oh-so-much work! It is times like these when my handy dandy Cricut with the Art Philosophy cartridge is a life-saver! The Art Philosophy cartridge has 6 different 3D flowers, so I chose the one I thought would work best and began my mission to create the most spectacular bouquet.

I first visited a used bookstore to find a book that had large pages and pretty print. Originally I was looking for sheet music or Shakespeare or maybe a dictionary. But when I found this Bible on the clearance shelf for $2, I knew what I would be using! It turned out even more perfect than I had envisioned...I LOVE the idea of a bride carrying the Bible down the aisle. But you can certainly use any type of book you desire. (Some don't like the idea of cutting a holy book, but it personally does not bother me since it's not my own Bible.)

If you are on a budget for your wedding, this bouquet is perfect, but I must forewarn you that you will spend many, many hours creating it (can you imagine if you were also cutting out each petal individually instead of using your Cricut?!). If you're willing to put in the time, this will be a very budget-friendly bouquet. If you do not already have a Cricut and/or the Art Philosophy cartridge...I highly recommend investing in them!

Here is the "before" and "after" of the flower when you cut it from the Art Philosophy cartridge. I find that the easiest way to roll it is to start wrapping it around a thin object like a skewer or Piercing Tool. Start with the outside and roll until you reach the base. I secure it on the base with hot glue because it dries fast so I don't have to hold the flower in place very long. (See my video below for a better visual.)

For the bridal bouquet I cut my flowers at 7-1/4" and put them onto a 5" styrofoam ball. Keep cutting and rolling until you have 50 flowers.

 For the stem, I actually used pencils! You can also use skinny wooden dowels. The idea is to have the "stems" about the girth of a real flower stem. I used brand new pencils and sharpened them to make it easier to push into the styrofoam. Then I bunched them together and wrapped with floral tape. Start at the pointy tip and work your way to the eraser, then back up to the points. (See my video to see how I covered the ends of the erasers.)

When you insert the pencils you want to be sure they're really secure. I first made the hole about 1" deep with the pencils. Then I added gobs of hot glue into the hole and on the pencils and inserted them. Then I added another ring of hot glue around the pencils at the base of the hole.

Now you're ready to start adding the flowers onto the styrofoam ball. I began near the stems and secured each flower with a pearl-tipped pin. You can find these in the floral section of your local craft store. Some pins may be harder to push through than others because of the hot glue on the flowers, but the hot glue didn't get in the way too much. I did not need any extra hold than the pin...they stayed in just fine and add a nice touch!

Make sure you put each flower very close together. You want them to look almost squished for the best outcome, (this is what florists do with this style bouquet—my mom's a florist!). You also want to make sure you don't see the styrofoam through.

And voila, you have a beautiful paper rose bouquet to carry down the aisle!

Here is the bride with her maid of honor showing off their bouquets!

Photo by Lisa Conrad Photography

I created the following video tutorial to show you how to create the wedding bouquets yourself. I will demonstrate how to roll the flowers, wrap the floral tape, and assemble the bouquet.

Supplies you'll need:

• Cricut (Expression or above, you need a 12x12 mat)
• Art Philosophy Collection (Cricut cartridge)
• Bible or other book with pretty pages, at least 8" tall/wide
• Foam ball (I used 5" for large bouquet)
• Pearl-tip pins
• Piercing Tool
• 3 sharpened pencils
• Floral tape
• Ribbon (I used 1-1/2")
• Hot glue

The best part is that you can display it in your home for years to come!

Here is another bouquet I've made since the first. I added more pencils to the stems to add more girth, which makes it more proportionate.  

 

You can find my original post for creating these bouquets on my blog here >

If you do not own a Cricut and would like to see the differences between each type of machine, here's a helpful Comparison Chart.

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