How to DIY your own rustic twig ball bouquet

Since we are on a fairly tight budget for our wedding, I've been really giving fresh flowers some thought. As in, I don't think we can afford anything fancy. So, for reception decor, the woman who owns our venue used to own a florist shop (how lucky is that?) and said she would decorate with local greenery (Beaufort, SC). I think it will look great!

But, then there was the bouquet concept. How can you have a bouquet without fresh flowers? Well, I scoured Offbeat Bride, and the world wide interweb and saw all the many amazing things you can do without fresh flowers…

In keeping with the same DIY vein as most of my wedding projects, my mom and I decided we could tackle the bouquet. So, I scoured some more and found a few inspiration photos that I liked and went to town. Here's how I made my rustic twig ball bouquet…

I took a trip to a few craft stores (Michaels, A.C. Moore, Hobby Lobby, etc.) and picked up some goodies I thought I might want to use, as follows.

Materials:

• dried Spanish moss
• green soft moss
• faux butterflies
• beaded wire (or you could bead some yourself!)
• one approx. 5″ twig ball
• miscellaneous woven threads/yarns
• wired rhinestones (the ones I used were vintage, but you could just use rhinestones)
• fimo blue egg (handmade by Mom, but you can find them at craft stores)
• feathers
• hot glue gun
• wire cutters
• sheer ribbon

Step 1:

First, I took my twig ball and put some of the green moss down inside of it. It can be a little tricky to get stuff in there, but if you push back some of the twigs, you can create a hole to put things through (without damaging the actual ball itself) and then pull them back into place when you're finished.

Step 2:

Next, I took some other twiggy type stuff, some faux Spanish moss, threads (leftover from other crafting projects), a feather, and some wired rhinestones, and created a little bird's nest that would fit down in the ball and sit atop the moss.

If you don't have all of that random twiggy stuff around, don't fret – you can purchase some really neat pre-made nests! I then hot glued a tiny blue egg (something blue!!) that my mom made out of fimo clay to the center of the nest. I smooshed the nest up and put it into the twig ball and used a pencil to situate it because I couldn't fit my fingers down in there!

Step 3:

Then, I wanted to embellish the twig ball itself and give it the same feel that the inside of the ball has. So, I took the faux Spanish moss and the beaded wire and entwined them with the twig ball itself.

Step 4:

Then, I attached the butterfly (which came with a wire attached). If it had not come with wire, you could easily hot glue wire to the butterfly and attach it that way.

Step 5:

Once that was finished, I was ready to give it a handle! So, I took a piece of sheer ribbon (about 1.5 feet long) and tied it to the twig ball.

And, there you have it! I cannot wait to carry this little ball of handmade love down the aisle!