Embrace the Soldier Memorial Day Holiday Bouquet

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It has been a long time since we tackled a DIY bouquet project. Too long. I want to go ahead and let you know that most of the craft projects will be moving over to my new craft store/blog TheArtsyCraftGirl.com. Every so often we’ll still present something crafty here at LiWBF especially since the home/garden section will stay on the blog. Bouquets, jewelry-making segments, polymer clay projects will all move to theArtsyCrafyGirl. I’m really excited to be starting a series of posts dedicated to beauty. This is something I’ve wanted to bring into the LiWBF lineup for months now. Nail tutorials, something I actually love doing very much will also be under this group. Exciting changes right? Be sure and sign up for the LiWBF Fab Five newsletter so you be notified when theArtsyCraftGirl.com goes live!

Let’s move on to the tutorial. Memorial Day is right around the corner. I cannot believe how quickly this year is passing by. Next thing I know, we’ll be breaking out the Halloween projects. Wow! Slow down, Father Time! LoL

I wanted to keep with the Memorial Day tradition of red, white, and blue. However, I wanted to do something special, to create a bouquet that captures the essence of the holiday while serving as a reminder of the sons and daughters we’ve lost in wars throughout the years. Let’s get started!

1. Gather Your Materials

Items you’ll need:
Flowers : Daisy, Irises, sunflowers, baby’s breath, and the soldier representative…
Vase
Memorial Day Hat
2 lbs of Marbles
Safety Pins
Red, White, and Blue Wired Ribbon

This is a relatively simple project. However, arranging flowers can still turn into a chore for many people. That’s why you have your bloggerly host (aka me) to help walk you through the process in six simple steps. Once you’ve found the plants in the above list then go ahead and remove the labels. We’re going to start by prepping the hat so that it can be ready to turn our arrangement into a showstopper when the Bouquet’s all done.

2. Assemble the Base

In this project, the base consists of two things: a) the super cool Memorial Day hat that will act as a surround to your flower vase and b) the glass vase that will be holding your bouquet.

Cut a hole in the top of the hat. Use your container as a stencil for creating the dimensions. As you can see from the diagrams, I originally started out with a square opening. However, the container I was going to use wasn’t strong enough to hold the bouquet, so I switched over to a pretty red, yet very round vase. No worries. Either shape will work. Once you’re done creating the opening for your vase then set the hat aside for now.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

All done!

Take a short vase (one that’s tall enough to anchor the plant and short enough to keep from being a distraction) and add the 2 pounds of marbles listed in the above materials. Fill the vase until it’s 3/4 of the way full. Slide the hat down over the vase. You’re now ready to move on to step 3.

3) Arrange Your Focal Plants

If you’ve followed the Super Cute series then you know that we always begin with our focal plant. In this bouquet I’m using a dark red plant as the symbol for the fallen soldier. A group of white burlap sunflowers, daisies, and carnations (because diversity is everything in these tutorials) represents the cradle holding the soldier’s spirit. For this reason, I made sure to surround the dark red plant with a healthy dose of white flowers.

Add the blue plants next. Surround the cradle (the white flowers) with a healthy dose of blue flowers (Irises and carnations). I cannot believe how hard it was to find blue flowers that didn’t look totally fake. I scoured several craft stores before finding the irises and poppies I’ve used in this bouquet. The result was fabulous all the way around, in my humble opinion.

Insert the red flowers on either side of the bouquet. Doing so helps to offset the deep red of the plant that represents your soldier while creating the illusion of balance.

4) Add the Highlights and Frillies

This is the part that makes these floral arrangements so much fun. Adding the highlight plants (baby’s breath) and the frillies, those little things that give the bouquet that dash of personality to make it unique. Make sure to spread the little surprises throughout the bouquet. I fell in love with the fireworks displays that also have American flags attached to the ends. I found this gorgeous robin and cardinal (North Carolina’s state bird and good luck charm according to my grandmama) for the super bargain price of $3.99 at the local craft store.

And what would a LiWBF bouquet be without our trademark butterfly attached to it? For me, the butterfly symbolizes hope and freedom, a collective representation of all things free and beautiful, the perfect finish for this bouquet.

5) Make the Bow

I used wired ribbon to make this cute little bow. The bow creates a cover up/bridge for the space between the vase and the opening we cut in top of the hat. Be sure to use wired ribbon because it gives you much more control over the structure of the bow. I created the bow by grasping a piece of ribbon between my thumb and index finger and then folding/looping small sections over and under my thumb as shown in the picture below.

Surprisingly, this method offers a great deal of control over your progress in the design. After completing the body of the bow, I double wrapped the center (while still holding onto the middle of the bow with my thumb and index finger) using a piece of ribbon and secured it with a safety pin.

Attach the ribbon to the vase using craft glue or you can just allow it to float freely on top of the hat as I’ve done in my design. The goal is to cover the gaping hole between the hat and the vase.

6) Enjoy Your New Creation!

Voila! You now have a very unique, yet sentimentally proper Memorial Day centerpiece, something that’s sure to be the conversational piece of your festivities for many years to come.

What do you think of the Memorial Day bouquet?

Don’t forget to tune in for theArtsyCraftGirl’s launch on this Saturday, May 21st. News about either a twitter or Facebook party will be posted on Live Well… Be Fabulous’s social networks so stay tuned!

**The article Embrace the Soldier Memorial Day Tutorial first appeared on Live Well… Be Fabulous!**