Weddingbee Blog

The last time you saw our boutonnieres, they looked like this:

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I know you’ve been DYING to see these things finished, so I’m finally happy to be able to oblige.

I wanted to attach the LEGO minifigs to the center of these flowers, but I didn’t want it to be permanent—once The Big Day is over, you should be able to take the little dudes off and play with them! So rather than reaching for the hot glue gun, I decided to use something I have spools and spools of around here, leftover from another project: floral wire! It’s thin, light, and malleable, so it’ll do a good job holding these guys in place without looking bulky, and when everybody goes home they can simply snip the wire and remove their LEGO.

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First, I poked a hole in the center of the flower with an awl (a pointy thing you use a lot in leather working). If you don’t have a pointy thing, you could always use sharp scissors.

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I cut a length of floral wire and wrapped it around the minifig until I was satisfied that it would be secure.

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I passed both ends of that wire through the hole in the center of the flower. To turn these flowers into boutonnieres, I purchased some of these pin backs from a craft supply shop on Etsy because I could not find them ANYWHERE in craft stores. (This is the first time my dear friend Michaels has ever let me down!) Those holes are a convenient place to pass the ends of that wire.

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Those holes are also great for hot glue. Once everything was lined up, I lifted the center of the pin up a little and shot in a bead of hot glue, then pressed the pin firmly against the fabric. The hot glue smooshes between the pin and the fabric, creating a connection, but it also seeps through that hole and eeks onto the outside of the pin back. Once the glue hardens, you’ve got not only the sticky bond of the glue, but also a mechanical link created by the solid piece of glue. Observe this cross-section:

engineering + Paint = knowledge

So this is hardly an unbreakable bond, but it is pretty darn sturdy.

All that’s left to do is twist the ends of the wire together tightly, snip them short, and bend them flat against the pin.

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Want to see them all together?

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Before I started this project, I asked Mr. Potion to pick out a LEGO character that represents the personality of each of his attendants. Instead, he sent a Facebook message to everyone and asked them to choose a character. *facepalm* Just a heads up to anyone who wants to reproduce these—you canNOT buy individual characters at LEGO stores, though they do have little bins where you can assemble your own minifig with a limited selection of bodies, heads, hair, and accessories. We scoured Amazon and eBay for these guys, most of which were $5 or less—but a couple were upwards of $15, depending on how “rare” they are.

So we have, starting from the top of the pyramid:

• Han Solo is the groom, because Mr. Potion is just so effortlessly cool. Mainly it’s because he has a tendency to respond to “I love you” with “I know,” because Star Wars is awesome, and because if I’m a headstrong princess, he’s the only person that will tell me when I’m being a pain in the ass.
• “Lizard Man” is GM L, because…he has a pet lizard. This is literally a little man in a lizard suit—there’s a cutout in the jaws of the lizard for the dude’s eyes.
• Indiana Jones is GM E, because he, too, is a pretty awesome teacher—only he teaches science classes at a magnet high school in Louisiana, and as far as we know he’s never done any treasure hunting. (He does take some pretty awesome pictures, though.) It’s appropriate that he and Mr. Potion would both be Harrison Ford characters, as they look alike and could be mistaken for brothers.
• Next we have “Jungle Boy” for GM J because…I honestly have no idea. This is what you get when you have goofballs making decisions. I guess that’s why he went with this one, though—because he’s a goofball. If you can’t tell, Jungle Boy is wearing a loincloth and holding a monkey. Yeah. (J is a super fun guy. ^_^ I’m hoping he leaves the loincloth at home for The Big Day, though…)
• Hermione is Mr. Potion’s honor attendant, which is definitely fitting, as she’ll have to wrangle these boys for me and keep them in line all day.
• Iron Man is GM C, because he’s a pilot, and who wouldn’t want to be Iron Man? The moment Mr. Potion asked people to pick their characters, C claimed Tony Stark—the guy takes his super heroes very seriously.
• The last row starts with Luke Skywalker as my dad because he, too, is a pilot in his spare time, and he’s been known to save the universe when necessary.
• The Nurse (well, technically the character was labeled a surgeon, but don’t tell anybody) is Mr. Potion’s dad, because…he’s a nurse. Boom. Done. I love that he’s holding a little syringe and x-ray!
• The baseball player is for one of the tiny attendants, my baby cousin A. His dad, my uncle, played baseball in college, and A has a good arm on him, too.
• Finally the Race Car Driver is for Mr. Potion’s other tiny attendant, his nephew J. Little J loves the movie Cars—at least, he did when we bought these. Kids’ favorite things change on almost a daily basis, but I’m hoping race cars are still cool in his eyes on The Big Day.

So…what do you think? If you had to pick a LEGO character to represent you, what would you pick? (Check out the characters on the official site!) What are your groom and his attendants wearing on their lapels on your wedding day?