Weddingbee Blog

Originally published on October 21, 2010

Ms. Sloth nominated Ms. Stripes’ Brooch Bouquet DIY as her post for the helpful series, because she used it to make her own brooch bouquet. Ms. Sloth says, “I’d seen a lot of other tutorials, but Stripes’ was the simplest.”

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Again- for Sloth. And any other lovelies out there who wanna continue their extreme arm toning regime on their wedding day. You’re hardcore. Enjoy the tutorial kids!

PREP:

I already had a fairly sizable collection of brooches from my awesome adopted grandma, and the rest I found in thrift stores, on eBay, and even borrowed one from the awesome Mrs. Nachos!

Gather/Edit your brooches. I used around 50!

Gather Supplies: hot glue gun, needle nose pliers, wire cutter, thin wire (16-18 gauge) and much thicker craft wire. Both of these are from the craft section and I liked the flexibility better than floral wire. Also not pictured but of utmost importance: floral tape to wrap this beauty up!

Unroll craft wire and snip your “stems.” I made mine 14” so I had plenty to work with, and later cut them a bit shorter.

WIRE:

This is the tedious part and a great time to catch up on a season (or two) of your favorite TV show!

Prep your Brooches: Clean ‘em up all pretty.

Make sure the clasp is closed and add a dot of hot glue to secure it. A more permanent solution might be super glue, but I may want to dismantle my bouquet in the future and wear the pins!

Cut a piece of thin wire about 12” and wrap the end of it around one end of the pin.

Wrap it two or three times and use needle nose pliers to pull the wire under the entire pin mechanism/tighten the wire.

Take the other side of your wire and wrap it around the other side of the pin mechanism in the exact same way.

It will look like this!

Now grab each side of the wire at the center of the pin mechanism and twist it together all the way to the end.

Grab one of your “stems” and make a hook at one end.

Place the hook end of your “stem” through the center of the wire just above where you twisted it together.

Huh? Here’s a closer look.

Wrap your skinny wire around the hook and down the stem. You now have a sturdy, yet pliable stemmed brooch!

Voila! A wired brooch! Now rinse and repeat, oh, 40-50 times!

WRAP:

I did this part in thirds and then combined the three smaller pieces to create my bouquet. This worked great and made the project a lot more manageable. So aim for creating the general size and a rounded shape, but don’t worry about the back of each piece, as all the backs will eventually face each other in the center of the bouquet.

Pick a few brooches you like grouped together and wrap their stems together with fabric floral tape. This stuff is great because it is super stretchy and sticks to itself as you stretch/wrap it.

Continue adding one brooch at a time, holding its stem in place and taping it to the rest of the bunch. Don’t worry about how it looks from the back- just aim to create a pretty rounded picture from the front.

Create three “mini” bouquets that are the general shape of your final bouquet.

Now combine the three “mini” bouquets pretty sides out and wrap, wrap, wrap with floral tape until it feels pretty sturdy. Don’t worry if it doesn’t look perfect yet- once it’s securely wrapped you can bend and tweak to your heart’s content!

Finally wrap the stem with fabric or ribbon.

After your wedding, proudly display your AWESOME bouquet in your home.

AND FINIS.

All in all it was a little tedious and time consuming, but it definitely wasn’t rocket science. And it really wasn’t so bad! If you have a bunch of these brooches already, or are an avid ebay/thrift/vintage queen, then I say go for it! Also please let me know if I can clarify anything! Enjoy. And I do hope you’ll share your results!

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Catch up on Weddingbee’s “Helpful Posts” Series!