I’ll throw this out there- I don’t pretend to be a floral designer in any sense of the word. I actually have zero design skills period. Interior design, fashion design, designing dinner? Nada. I’m clueless. My dad’s mother (my Mimi!) is an AMAZING floral arranger though (she did all of our wedding flowers, which you’ll see next week!) and I’ve always secretly wanted to try my hand at it. So when an occasion this past weekend called for a surprise bouquet, I got really excited about the chance to try my hand at green thumbery!

My journey began at Wegmans, the mother of all grocery stores. Well, the second mother. Harris Teeter will always be my favorite. So we’ll name Wegmans the “brother from another mother” of all grocery stores. Are you tracking with me even in the slightest?

I began in their flower shoppe and ended up choosing a dozen pink roses and a small bundle of Bells of Ireland. I love bouquets with a bit of dimension, so I knew I wanted some sort of tall green that could extend farther than the roses. Altogether, you’ll need the roses, an accent green, scissors, floral wire, burlap and twine. DIY country wedding bouquetI’m not sure if this is the proper way to prep roses, but I don’t like the leaves so I pulled them all off. 🙂

DIY country wedding bouquet

Then I started grouping the roses in my hand and placed the Bells of Ireland throughout the bouquet, pulling the stems down so that they didn’t protrude too far.

DIY country wedding bouquet

This is where I should have used floral wire, but I didn’t have time to run out and get some so I just used twine. It was a little difficult- I’m guessing you’ll be better off using wire. After you’ve wrapped the stems, trim the ends to your desired length.

DIY country wedding bouquet

Cut about 8 inches of burlap and wrap it around the stems of the flowers to cover the floral wire, then twist twine around the burlap to keep the burlap nice and tight around the stems. Or if you prefer a more sophisticated finish, use ribbon instead of burlap.

DIY country wedding bouquet

Et voila! C’est fini! < Madame Flynn would be proud that I retained that much French.

DIY country wedding bouquet

I know it’s simple and that a real floral arranger would probably roll her eyes at it, but it made the recipient really happy and I personally think it’s cute! And altogether, the entire project cost me less than $20.

DIY country wedding bouquet

What do you think? Do I have a future in sub-par bouquet-ery? Or should I stick strictly to photography?

Happy Tuesday!

DIY- A simple country bouquet

January 3, 2012

  1. This is too cute for words! 🙂 Absolutely lovely!

  2. This is absolutely lovely! 🙂 Gorgeous!

  3. Melissa says:

    Adorable…Great job Abby. I would be thrilled with it 😉

  4. So great! You are a woman of many hats 🙂

  5. Katie says:

    Beautiful bouquet!! I love diy flowers…they just have a sweet look.

  6. Kaitlyn says:

    Very pretty!!

  7. Beth says:

    Very cute! I like the burlap.

  8. Elizabeth says:

    I love it! I think you did a fantastic job, and I especially love the color of the roses!

  9. Lovely and simple. You are a woman of many talents 🙂

  10. Jean Hensley says:

    I love it!! Great job, great description. Easy to follow directions!!

  11. um that is perfectly DIY … i LOVE it. stop saying you have no design skills ;-p

  12. It is very sweet. I am your alter ego. I am a florist, but just purchased my first DSLR and think I have taken some pretty spanky photos…I wanted to be able to capture my own work, so that I would not always be stalking photographers…still, I think I will stick to flowers and leave the professional imagery to someone else. I do think your bouquet is equal to some of my photos! That is a compliment to both of us!

  13. Too cute! Love the roses shade of pink!

  14. Anna Reid says:

    Cute! I love Bells of Ireland- they were part of the main focus in my wedding flowers!! They’re so vibrant.

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