Paper snowflake boutonnieres for your wintery budget wedding

I have so many wintery wedding projects up my sleeve, but this week all my money for materials was zapped by those gifts I bought for my loved ones! Winter brides, you might be in the very same boat, so I decided to go with another cost-effective craft: paper snowflake boutonnieres.

It's no secret I love floral alternatives — they appeal to my crafty and frugal natures alike. So when I thought about winter weddings I immediately thought of making paper snowflake boutonnieres.

Paper snowflakes are some of my favorite things to create. They look good in every color, and each one is unique. But what truly brought up my snowflake game was this awesome paper snowflake tutorial I read years ago about how to turn pictures and words into amazing snowflakes. I like to use the same principles applied in that tutorial to make personalized snowflakes for friends using their names. And during one particularly lean Christmas season I filled my Advent calendar with daily snowflakes to unfold, cut from days of the week (photo here).

I bought this thick glitter scrapbooking paper, but noticed it is too thick to fold and slice in the normal snowflake fashion, so I drew my own pattern and cut it out. This snowflake is about 3″ in diameter… big enough to make a statement on its own, small enough to group together with a few snowflake brethren. If you choose to cut into good, old-fashioned lightweight paper, consider grabbing inspiration from the aforementioned tutorial and use the wedding date or names of the boutonniere's recipient to cut around.

I grabbed some number stickers and put a winter wedding date on my snowflake bout. Initials would also work. Then of course there are a bunch of you who would want to stick a Super Mario sticker in the center; follow your hearts! You can buy small bags of pin backings at your local craft supply, hot glue them to the backs of your snowflakes, et voila!

Here's how it looks on a jacket:

Guest Post By: Jessica Charlton

http://offbeatbride.ning.com/profile/ieatglitter

Jessica Charlton's weapon of choice has always been an embroidery needle; her work has been featured on mrxstitch.com and feelingstitchy.com. She produces and teaches crafts of many kinds, and notably taught two years in a row at maximumfun.org's delightful comedy podcasting sleepaway camp, MaxFunCon. Never able to focus too long on just one inspiration, Offbeat Bride allows her to work on diverse projects, and for that she is grateful.