DIY Hydrangea Pomanders

This weekend I knocked out another project on my DIY TODO list- pomanders.

Earlier in the month I asked your opinion in my great silk vs. paper debate, and after a lot of hemming and hawing, I made a decision:

Silk. and I will tell you why.

1. Time. I did a run-through of the paper flowers with printer paper and pen. It took about 20 minutes for me to make one flower. I do not have that kind of time and/or patience to take on a project like that. Not at this stage in the game.

2. Water. If it rains the day of the wedding (God forbid) or even if someone accidentally spills water on the paper pomanders, they are toast. With silk, if they get wet, all we will have to do is shake them out a little and they will be ok.

3. Resale Value. I would like to resell these later, and I feel the cardstock would not hold up too well in the shipping process. I would actually be concerned about just transporting them to the venue and back!

Time to get down to the knitty-gritty of it all. Let's start with the supplies:

20 hydrangea Spray (I ordered mine from Afloral.com, and I specifically ordered these)
5" Styrofoam balls (you can get them from Michael's but the best price is from LACrafts)
Hot glue gun
Ribbon
Bedskirt Pins (more on those later)

First, I want to show you my trial and error- focusing more on the error.
When you get the flowers each stem has about 5 blooms on it. I was cutting each stem and sticking it in the styrofoam ball. This made for two problems: first they were obnoxiously large

and after 20 spray, I only had 6 pomanders done, and all of them were bald on the bottom.

So I had to reassess my situation.

I plucked each bloom from the stem (no cutting required) and separated them into two piles- big blooms for outlining and little blooms to use as filler flowers

Next, I figured out where I wanted the bloom, stuck it in the styrofoam, pulled it out*, shot some hot glue in the hole*, and stuck the flower back in.

I began with a perimeter around the ball

then I would divide each side

and filled in each area until it was full.

The ribbon was a little tricky. I wasn't sure how I was going to attach it to the ball. I was afraid that if I hot glued it directly to the ball, it might make it harder for the next bride to switch out the ribbon. Then I had an ingenious idea.

About a year ago, I picked up a bunch of bedskirt pins after reading about them on All Things G&D. I still had a bunch left over, and thought they would be perfect because their corkscrew shape would hold onto the stryofoam without having to use more hotglue. I used a blue chiffon ribbon that is very similar to my bridesmaids dresses, stuck the bedskirt pin through the ribbon, and then into the styrofoam. I have to say, it's super durable!

It took me roughly six hours to finish this project- and that included deconstructing the 6 pomanders I had already done, pulling apart the stems, and reassembling each one.

If you are going to attempt this project, I highly recommend finding a place to hang them until the wedding date. I had them sitting in a box over the weekend and they got incredibly flat. For the next month and half, they will be hanging the utility closest

Whew. That was one major project that feels good to get checked off the list!

Always & Forever,

ME


*that's what he said.