DIY Week: All the Little Ladies (day three)

All the little ladies (all the little ladies)
All the little ladies (all the little ladies)
All the little ladies (all the little ladies)
All the little ladies...now throw your flowers up!

Yesterday I showed you what our little guys were toting down the aisle, so naturally today is about the little girls. As I mentioned before, we're having four little ladies in the wedding. Three of the flower throwing variety (i.e. flower girls), and one of the flower carrying variety (e.g. junior 'maid).

Lets start with the flower girl baskets. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have not quite completed the flower girl baskets. They're in SoFla right now with MamaP, so I couldn't finish them this past weekend while tying up other DIY loose ends. They're on the list for August when I'm home for my shower. Here's what I've got so far:

{side view}
Buying any kind of flower girl accessory/prop for three can get expensive quickly. Per my usual, I took matters into my own hands, and purchased plain baskets (from where else, Hobby Lobby) and proceeded to hook them up with some glossy spray paint. It took way more spray paint than I expected to get fairly even coats on the baskets. I'll probably have to touch them up again in August as you can tell they have been bumped around a bit in transit.

{here are all three together}
After several coats of paint, I purchased some ivory fabric and proceeded to hot glue some of it inside in a non-bootleg way. Now that I think about it, fitting the satin inside the baskets was more complicated than I anticipated too - lol.

I plan to finish these baskets off with some teal and (probably polka dot) kiwi ribbon. I'll probably wrap the ribbon around the handle and put some bows at the bottom on each side. We'll have to see when they're in front of me again.

{the flower pomander}
I have a hard time calling the oldest little girl a junior 'maid. She's a good bit older than the other girls, and will love this more grown up role. I'd much rather think of her as the Head Flower Girl (Hm, I kinda like that...it may show up in the program, lol). As such, she gets to carry her flowers down the aisle in the form of a pomander. I got this idea from MnOH Krissi, as I carried a flower pomander in her wedding almost 3 years ago.

{all secure!}
MnOH Krissi gave me some pretty straightforward instructions. To start, I purchased a foam ball and used straight pins to attach the handle to the ball. Depending on the type of flowers you decide to attach, a little ball will go a long way. Also, put more pins than you think you need. I recommend you try to angle the pins as you insert them to make the handle more secure. And then don't use the handle to carry it until absolutely necessary. The handles can be a real headache, and once it decides it wants to come out, its hard to seriously secure it again.

{I call this the Mohawk technique}
After you secure the handle, you can add the flowers. This part is largely trial and error. I ended up using a chopstick to stick a hole in the foam ball first, then I filled it with hot glue and stuck the flower pieces in.

I used pieces of silk hydrangea for the flower ball, since that's what I'm carrying. Unfortunately, they are not the cheapest flower, but I got them on sale at Michaels (surprise, surprise). I would recommend that you pull apart the flowers before you start to stick and glue. It kind of wrecks your flow if you have to keep stopping to this. Also, I cant emphasize enough that you should buy more flowers than you think you need. Like, 2x the amount. I sucks to have to stop mid project because you ran out of materials. Trust me, I know.

{about halfway done}
Once you get your rhythm, the ball comes together quickly. Its just poke and glue, poke and glue. Try and place the flowers fairly close together so that you don't have bald spots in your pomander. If you put them too close, it will take many more flowers. I wouldn't worry too much about it though, bald spots can be fixed. And if you have a disaster, you can just pull the flowers out and start again.

{one last pic}
I love how the ball turned out. Its a little bigger than I intended, but I really think my Head Flower Girl will enjoy carrying this down the aisle, like the other big girls.

So there you have it folks. For the most part, all the props for our little ladies are ready to go. I cant wait to see it all together - them in their dresses and carrying their props. They're going to be so cute!

Tomorrow I'm going to show you something for our guests. And no, I don't mean the favors. Adi!

♥