Brooch Bouquet

Morning

I'm making my own so can give some advice from where I'm upto now...

Cost depends entirely on the brooches you collect - some of mine have been given to me by friends and family and other's i've paid between £1 to £4 on... I think I have nearly enough and have probably spent about £30 on them?

You don't have to do this, but because some of my brooches are really old, I used a glue gun to glue the clasps together to stop them opening and falling off my bouquet - the gun and sticks cost me about £5 on ebay.

All tutorials say the same thing about wiring - I got some florist wire (I got silver from hobbycraft for about £2.50, but then found some green in wilkinsons for 98p which is much better!) and wired them all. Some of them I have to wire a bit stronger than others to give more support - this was a bit fiddly but I stuck a film on and got cracking.

Now's the bit I'm struggling with - the assembly! I tried bunching them together as the tutorials say, but they just looked overlapped and crap. Then I bought this thing from Wilkinsons (from the garden section, it was a potter or something - round and green bowel but with holes at the bottom, was £1.98). I put the brooches in and it held them perfectly BUT it was too flat on the top.

That's where I'm up to! This weekend I'm going to buy some oasis to make the bowl more 'dome' shaped and will try that, or try it with just the dry oasis... I know most tutorials say don't use it, but it seems like the only way I can get it to look as smooth as I want!

Sorry that was a big rant and if it didn't make much sense I am typing it whilst trying to pretend I'm listening to a conference call at work haha

My friend made mine.

Cost wise, a lot of the brooches were vintage, and in total came to just over £100. She "padded" it out around the bottom with black silk roses.

As for assembly, I believe she wired the brooches, then bunched a few together, then when she had a few bunches, she wired them all together, wrapped with wire, then wrapped with ribbon.

She tried the oasis type holders, and didn't reccomend them as some of the "branches" kept coming loose when the oasis crumbled.Wiring them together offered more stability, but with this i guess it's trial and error, see what works for you. There are a lot of brooches is mine, so i think it was too heavy for the holder.

Here's mine

Thanks so much for the advice! Very helpful Might visit a few charity shops this weekend and see if I can source some brooches.

Do you think a broock bouquet will look ok next to my bridesmaid flowers / wrist corsages?

I think it will look fine, I don't see why not... you could always get some silk flowers matching your bridesmaid flowers and add them in?

I've found charity shops and vintage markets have been the best value... although i went to a vintage market last weekend and found a brooch that cost £48! I find ebay too expensive for this, because when you add postage it increases the cost quite a lot per brooch!

Also, I looked at oasis holders but they didn't look like they'd work - the bowl thing I got from wilko's is much more supportive (as it's still the wires that support the brooches, the bowel just acts as a shaper!)

That one is amazing Lldy_lyla! Good idea about the flowers. I have booked a florist so could always get her to add some freah flowers if possible!

I would love to create something like this......

My dress has a small vintage diamonte bit under the bust so think it would work well

That's gorgeous and exactly the colour I want... I'm having a go at making my own as ones you can buy are just too expensive... i do have almost 18 months to make it so fingers crossed!

When do you want to have yours done by? x

Wedding is not until next October so I have lots of time! I am very impatient and lose interest easily though so need to start sooner rather than later so I can keep coming back to it!!

I have seen some of your stuff on here and it looks amazing! I am making a lot of our stuff too

Yeah that was my thought - lots of time for trial and error!! If i get it right soon though, I'm not sure how it's going to store for so long haha

What other things are you making? Just saw your cake ideas and I love them!

I love brooch bouquets and that was what I thought I wanted until I started playing around with the paper. As we are planning on November 2013, I want some winter sparkle in mine so might need to use some sparkly buttons. I would love to see flashes ladies when you're done or even just work in progress!

Babyloo I will defo flash mine once I get it going

Lady_lyla my concern is that if I make it now I'll get bored of it!! Everything else i've bought has been quickly stored away so that I don;t see it all the time and get sick of it!!

I am making save the dates (almost done and will flash soon!), centrepieces, invites, seating plan, some decorations, photo booth, photowall......I have also invested in a glue gun