Feathers are fabulous

So, as I have mentioned before I have the DCOA coming up. Since I find it morally corrupt that everybody seems to mark up prices a bajillion dollars (that’s an estimate) when anything seems to be connected to a wedding/vow renewal, I have been trying to figure out ways to cut back on costs. Also, I have been to such a wide range of weddings that I KNOW it is possible to have a gorgeous champagne wedding on a beer budget. One of the little projects I worked on was these feather boutonnieres (you have no idea how wrong I spelled that word before I spellchecked it). This all spurred from the fact that I didn’t want to carry a flower bouquet. You know why? Because of all the weird reasons that it is a tradition to carry one. Examples:

-The bridal bouquet had its earliest beginnings as a bunch of fragrant herbs whose "job" it was to discourage evil spirits from getting close to the bride.

-Flowers are incorporated into the wedding ceremony as a symbol of fertility. The first bouquets consisted of herbs and, later, orange blossoms.

And my personal favorite:

-Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell, brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Well, since I don’t smell, I have no evil spirits, and I have a child, I don’t personally see a reason to carry around a bunch of flowers. In my search of bouquet alternatives I came across feather bouquets. While almost everything that is an alternative to a bouquet is pretty cool, it is also pretty expensive (including feather bouquets). I decided to ultimately surrender to the stupid flower bouquet, but incorporate feathers as much as I could. Since I am doing all of the flowers myself for the DCOA, I realized I did not know a thing about making flower boutonnieres, and thus the feather boutonniere idea was born. I googled and etsyed (that’s a word) and found some, and again found out they were expensive. Then I amazoned and ebayed and decided to do it myself. Now, I am going to tell you how I did it, so that you can do it if you want, but the instructions are extremely puny. I spent about 2 total hours on them and spent $50 on the items and made 5 boutonnieres and 5 pins for the ladies to wear (and have a ton of other feathers to put on shoes and whatever else my heart desires).

Above is a picture of everything I used:

·         An assortment of feathers

·         Crafting glue

·         Scissors

·         Black ribbon

·         Patience (Although that’s not completely true because I have virtually none and I could still make these)

·         Small ¾-1 inch flat back pins

I had a general color scheme I was going for: black, red and silver. I decided to take a risk and get the spotted guinea feathers just because they are so cute. I also bought way too many feathers, but that was because I was nervous and sort of didn’t know what I was doing (which means you can totally do this).

The only annoying thing about making these cuties is that the feathers come in pads. They are lightly glued onto these pads so you have to sort of gingerly peel them off. Some get ruined in the process, so I was glad I ordered extra feathers. (If anyone has any idea of how to take the feathers off easier let me know!) Then it was as simple as assembly. I combined a few feathers to see how I liked it, made a few different combinations (there is no right or wrong way) and then once I decided what I liked, I took the bottom two and put a small amount of glue and pressed them together. Then I would continue until the layers were all glued together at the bottom and then let them dry overnight. The next day I would glue the pins on the back (I just glued them in the middle). Let them dry overnight again (curse patience!). The final step was to wrap a ribbon around the bottom of the feathers. I cut a strip of ribbon, about 12 inches, glued the beginning of it to the underside of the boutonniere and let it dry overnight again. The next day I wrapped tightly around the bottom of the feathers and put a small amount of glue on the underside, held it for a few minutes, then placed them glue side down onto something you don’t mind getting glue on. After they dry, I just snipped of the end of the ribbon and voila!

I want to marry these little pretties!

I will add some more DCOA DIY details in future if anybody seems interested. :)