A couple days ago I posted a sneak peak of our boutonnieres. I originally found the idea through Martha Stewart’s wedding inspiration section on her website. Personally I thought it would have been helpful to have just a little bit more detail, so I’m providing that to you.
We made the boutonnieres because it seems like every wedding that Peter and I have attended, the boutonnieres end up getting crushed from all the hugs that the groom and attendants receive. We felt it was silly to spend a lot of money on something that so often gets destroyed. After looking for inexpensive alternatives, Peter and I felt that these particular boutonnieres would hold up through a ton of hugs, could be made well in advance, and still had an element of sophistication. Peter’s family bought most of the materials to make them this summer but after piecing together all of the receipts it it seems like they spent about $15 on 12 boutonnieres–rather than the $180 or more that it would have cost through a florist.
All in all the project was really easy! The first boutonniere that I made looked great and there was very little tweaking to be done from there on. Nonetheless there were some little bits of information that I wish I had when I started, so here’s a walk through of how to make them.
Martha’s directions called for covered button, but didn’t specify a size. Peter’s mom did a great job guessing. I think the sizes turned out really nicely. We used three different sized button covers 5/8 (pictured), 7/8, and 1 1/8. The directions provided on the box of button covers are really clear. Each size comes with a separate pattern. You cut out the pattern and trace it onto the wrong side of your fabric.
Then you cut out a circle in the necessary size. (The edges won’t show, so you don’t need to cut it perfectly.)
Below is a bad picture of what to do, but basically you hold the fabric tightly and push the button and into the mold. I tried to capture this action but you really need two hands to do it so taking a picture impeded the process.
Repeat over and over and over again until your fingers feel like they’re developing blisters from using the button press.
Create stems using floral wire.
Then wrap the ends in floral tape. The leaf is made in a similar way. You create a pattern (Peter used his art skills to do this for me.), cut them out, put a piece of floral wire in between each side, iron them together with the no sew bonding tape, and then wrap the end in floral wire.
After you’ve assembled all of the pieces then you can arrange you bouquet in any way you like. Finally, secure it with floral tape and then cover the floral tape with a pretty ribbon. I’m paranoid about things coming undone so I coated the back of the ribbon in fabric glue that make sure that my knot wouldn’t unravel during the ceremony. Can you imagine, a knot coming undone while you’re tying the knot? OK, bad joke, but it still seems like a bad omen.
So there you have it. That’s how we made the boutonnieres. It took a few hours of solid crafting, but I’m sure it would have gone much faster if I had enlisted a friend. Good luck and happy crafting!
I spent most of Saturday night making these. My fingers are sore from hours of manipulating floral wire, but I’m pleased with the end result.
I’ll be back soon with a DIY breakdown. Hope everyone had a great weekend!
About a month ago I came across this video for J. Crew’s new fall line.
I love everything about it, the song playing in the background, the clothes, the model’s silly-coy way with the camera, her messy up-do, and most of all her chic swipe of lip color. Watching the video you get the sense that right before she dashed out the door she pulled out her lipstick for that effortless but wondefully put together look.
Obviously this is a preview for the J.Crew fall line, so I understand that this isn’t really how it all went down. Nevertheless, I forwarded the video to my friend Caroline (who also loved her fabulous messy up-do) and we emailed back and forth about what we thought the color might be. According to Caroline, J.Crew uses a lot of Nars products on their models. A few days later I found myself at Sephora and every single Nars color was on display–except for the one that Caroline predicted she was wearing. So I wandered around until I stumbled on Laura Mercier’s Hydratint in Crimson.
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The color isn’t the same–its not nearly as orangey as the lip color on the model, but I love it. I feel like its a good transition from no lip color to full on lipstick. It gives a pop of color without feeling overly dramatic. So far everyone who has tried it has loved it too.
Peter and I returned to Austin just before our blogiversary (the 19th) and have been doing nothing but playing catch up ever since. Each day I feel like I accomplish a million things, then I look down at my to do list and I see a million more. I guess this means I’m an adult. Hopefully, it just means I’m busy.
The drive home from Chicago is one that we’ve done before (Can you believe that we bought our car exactly a year ago and have since put more than 20,000 miles on it?!), but this time Peter and I were both swearing that we will never do it again. A late night flight from New York to Chicago the night before we left added a lot of exhaustion onto the trip. Then, on the second day of driving we got a a flat tire. It was a horrible experience, but we learned a lot from it.
We pulled past the Texas border, cheering because we knew we would be home soon–when all of a sudden our tire pressure light came on. After inflating the tires and then watching the light come back on, we suspected we had hit something. Sure enough a huge nail was lodged into our back tire. Peter wanted to drive the rest of the way of the way home, but I knew it would be a better idea for us to stop at the Honda dealership and get a replacement. Luckily, it was the middle of the day and we were sure we had all the time in the world. Only, when we got to the Honda Dealership the parts guys were telling us they didn’t have a tire that would fit our car. “Okay, no problem,” we thought, “we’ll just head over to the Discount Tire.” Before this trip I thought a tire was a tire and you could get them anywhere, but apparently our 2009 Honda Fit has a very rare sized tire and after spending hours searching for one, we were desperate and didn’t know what to do. We also learned that you’re only supposed to drive 60 miles on a spare, so Peter’s original idea to drive home was out of the picture. We were pulled over at a gas station using the GPS and my iphone to search for places that might have a replacement tire. Out of ideas, we went to Target and Peter bought a bottle of green goo called Slime that was supposed to fix our tire.
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Right as he started getting out the original tire, it started pouring. The dogs and I stayed huddled in the car while Peter pulled out everything that was packed on top of the tire storage area. (I think he packed and unpacked the car 20 times that day.) The rain only added to his frustration and after a very long twenty minutes he knew the tire was destroyed beyond repair. We were out of options and somehow the afternoon had vanished and it was already 6:50 PM. We knew we weren’t going to make it home that day, so we called one of our fabulous friends and she and her boyfriend graciously let us stay at her house. In the next ten minutes we called every dealership in town and eventually located one that had a tire that could work.
The next day we arrived at the dealership, only to discover that the Slime had ruined the computer system in our car that measures the tire pressure, so it had to be replaced. A few hours later, we were finally on the road.
If and when we have to take another long journey, Peter and I will be buying another full tire before we go. Here are a few takeaways from our experience:
1.) Find out if you have a rare tire size before you go on a long car journey. If so, prepare accordingly.
2.) Don’t drive more than 60 miles on a spare.
3.) Slime destroyed the sensors in our car, use caution when using a product like this if you have pressure sensors in your tires. (It also voids the warranty on your tires, if you have one.)
4.) Good friends are hard to come by, but Peter and I are so lucky that we have some who will drop everything, go to dinner with us and drink wine and watch a movie, even on a work night. Thanks again, Caroline and Nick 
Peter and I were looking for a little something to save ourselves from hand addressing every single reply card, when I thought of this. I’ve been in love with custom stamps ever since I saw them on the Paper Cafe, but for our wedding I wanted something a bit more elegant. After searching through all of our options I fell in love with Bryn’s work from Paper Finger. Here’s a little reminder to refresh your memory.
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Interestingly enough, she was the only vendor who replied to my inquiry and she is based in Brooklyn, so I was able to cut out the hassle of shipping and walk over to her studio and pick the stamp up myself. Everything worked out really well. Within a week Peter and I had our very own custom stamp.
My only complaint is that because of the thinness of the lines, it can be a bit difficult to get an even print of the image. But overall, I think it adds to the handmade elegance that Peter and I were going for with the invitations.
What do you think?
