brooch bouquet... anybody made/making their own?

There are lots of ladies here doing this.use the forum search and you will find quite a few threads. I have a tutorial on my website too which may help

I'm making mine too - isn't it so much fun?! Its on hold at the moment as I've gathered everything except one thing - am waiting for my friend to knit me a flower so I can put that in there too. As a result, I don't have any pics to share with you. What I've done is made 'stems' of all the brooches, I'll then use artificial hydrangeas as the 'base' of the bouquet & thread the brooches through the hydrangeas. As I got most my brooches on ebay, I wanted the bouquet to have more 'keepsake' stuff so I got my mum to crochet me a flower, my other friend is knitting me a flower and I've another friend that made me wire flowers. My design will be to have the 'keepsake' items in the centre (the crocheted & knitted flowers will hold smaller pieces of jewellery that I want to include & can easily remove later without disrupting the bouquet) and then work the brooches around them. I'll then pop the 'bib' up under them (not sure what else to call it - it will hide the stems and make it look neater), wrap the stems in green floral tape. I'll then finish the handle with material/thick ribbon & then attach some charms & other keepsake items to the handle.

I've used about 40 pieces of large jewellery - I'd suggest go for brooches that are more than 3cm in diameter as I've smaller ones and they get lost!

I did consider fresh flowers on the outside but decided against it as I want to have the bouquet done and dusted well before the wedding - I really don't want to be putting it together the morning of the wedding with the fresh flowers. But that's just me - I have seen them with fresh flowers on the outside & they are nice - especially if you have lots of brooches in the middle!

I'll post pics but it won't be until April :-(

Just to let you know if anyone is doing this, the lady I share a studio with is an antique dealer specialising in jellewery and brooches. So if anyone is desperate for brooches do let me know and I can have a look to see what she has. They are not all silly prices, some are really reasonable, especially if the clasp is broken....but you can still use them in your bouquets.

Anyway....I'm sure you are sorted, but thought I'd put it out there just in case. x