Vintage Brooch & Fabric Bouquet Finally Finished!

With my son's wedding almost imminent, I am delighted to say that the bridal vintage brooch and fabric bouquet has now been completed! I was honoured to have been asked to make this, and my daughter-in-law to be put an awful lot of trust in my creative skills. Am chuffed to bits with the result and so too is the bride! Even another of my offspring, when he saw it finished,  remarked "it's fantastic", so praise indeed as my kids rarely comment on any of my creations, whether they are of the miniature kind or real life size!

I did make a smaller bridal brooch & fabric flower posy jointly with my sister in law a few years ago for my niece, and which I featured on here.  But this time I was making this all on my own.  The bride-to-be gave me a brief that she wanted it colourful and slightly wild looking...I think I laughed when she first said this to me, and told her that I would do my best. 

I do love a creative challenge though! 

This bouquet was made up of various fabric flowers, most of which I created from different coloured synthetic fabric.  Three fabric roses were purchased from Hobbycraft, and three crocheted flowers along with a small bunch of foam flowers, were purchased off Ebay, all super quality. 

My handmade flowers were created by cutting out various petal shapes of differing sizes and then singeing the edges over a naked candle flame. Once the edges were sealed, each one was then carefully held over the flame again to create the curl of the petal.  Not for the faint hearted I admit, although I only actually set fire to two petals in total...yes truly!  I made sure that I did all the singeing on my kitchen draining board so water was close by! To be honest, once you get used to this technique, it becomes a lot easier but you do have to be careful.

Some of the brooches were old family pieces from my mother-in-law, the brides mother and also her granny, which made this rather special. 

All the other brooches were purchased from charity shops or were gifts from other members of the family who had also been collecting old brooches for me. 

 Gradually as the flowers were made, I began to wire a brooch to the central part of each flower, plus on smaller flowers I used glass beads for the centres, all from a 1920s glass bead necklace. The glass beads give an extra sparkle as the light catches them.

The long wire stems were gradually wrapped around each other as the bouquet grew, to create a handle. It took a few weeks on and off, to get to this stage. It is trial and error in the placing of each flower, and if anyone attempts this, I would strongly recommend to spend a lot of time in placing the flowers before you wire the stems together. If you get it wrong, it will take you some time to unwire that particular flower from the handle...yep had to do that more than once!

 

I purchased some fabulous fabric eucalyptus leaves and rose hip twigs from a wonderful gift shop just outside  Chipping Campden on my travels (sadly the name of the shop escapes me). They were a little more pricey than the usual fabric foliage but paying that little bit extra was worth it, as they were so realistic than the cheaper versions.

Once all the flowers were  finally in place, the wire stems were trimmed and bound in fabric tape. Then the layers of foliage were added and bound to the handle. Firstly the eucolyptus, and then the rose hip twigs - minus the berries which I decided to snip off.

The contrast in the green colouring between the two different kinds of foliage gave the bouquet added depth...and the bride-to-be got that little bit of  the "wild look" that she wanted.  

Finally the handle was bound in a remant of silk from the bride's wedding dress and I tied a long length of vintage lace to hang down.

The finished bouquet is actually a little heavier than a real floral bouquet, so the bride won't be throwing this over her shoulder...but how fabulous that she can keep this forever and it will become a family heirloom.

This has been such fun to make!

Celia