Boutonnieres!

If you do a search on Etsy for boutonnieres you'll see all kinds of "out of the ordinary" boutonnieres and you'll see feathers.  Lots of feathers.

So my daughter and I went to work to make our own.

 This was one of THE most labor intensive projects I've taken on in a long time.  We kept saying it's about the process...the bonding time...And in the end we were both just so happy with the result!!

We had plenty of bonding time...hours...and... hours...but it really was fun.  Once we got the design, well it still took hours after that but at least we felt confident about what we were doing.
I'm not going to give you a step by step because how many people need to make boutonnieres?!

Seventeen of them.  The only purchased item was a feather for each at $.50 a piece. I also bought the baling wire which is a staple in my sewing room. Even the feather had to be re-worked.  I took each feather apart and made two from one.  Not that I'm cheap (well....that was part of it) but mostly we needed just a few feathers in front and in back of the leaf. That meant taking the feather apart and adding another stem to half of it.

Lauren wired each little bead separately. 136 of them.  The beads were in my stash from garage sales.

We both formed and hammered our little iron swirls and I made rose buds and the leaves out of book pages (what else?) .  We decided they needed a little "something" so white washed the buds and leaves with a mixture of matte medium and white paint.  Of course stems were added and then all of it gathered "just so" and wrapped with florist tape, burlap, and a ribbon.

Here's a sneak peak at the center pieces.  Flowers from someone on Craig's list and stump pieces from the farm!  We need to add a bit more yet....we think sticks...any suggestions?

Surprisingly...if you search for boutenniere on Etsy, you'll find some...I guess others have trouble spelling that word too.  I had to google it.  Yay Google and spellcheck!