Quick Crafts - Last Minute Corsage

Boys!  They just don't get it.  According to Facebook, my son is now, "In a Relationship." The rules have changed except he doesn't know it.  A swing dance was scheduled up at the high school and he wanted to take the girl.  I let him know that he'd need a corsage and even offered to make him one.  He did not know, nor did he ever find out for me, the color of her dress.  He did however pick out the red roses so that is what I went with.

So in my stash of craft crap as my husband tends to call it, I gathered up the necessary supplies.

• Corsage wrist base (craft stick and elastic)
• One base flower (cream colored mum)
• Five small roses
• Three sprigs of smaller cream flower
• Leaves
• Ribbon
• Sting of beads
• Floral foam
• Floral wire
• Floral tape
• Tacky glue
• Needle and thread

Step one is to staple of length of elastic to the craft stick unless you have an actual corsage base.

Next, wrap the stick with the floral wire to cover up the staple and hide the wood.

Sandwich the craft stick between sets of leaves and stitch.

Next, using the floral wire, attached a bit of floral Styrofoam to the base and begin to insert the roses.

If it's possible, feed wire through the bigger flower to secure it to the base.  It would not be good to loose the main flower in the middle of the dance.

Once the five roses and the main flower is in place, create five loops of beads.  You could use baby's breath if you have it.  I did not.

Coat the wire in tacky glue before inserting it into the foam.

It's looking good.

Next, add the three sprigs of smaller flowers.  Tacky glue on these stems as well would be good.

And the final step is to add ribbon.  An easy way to do this is to cut a length of ribbon that will allow three loops to be knotted into the ribbon.  Leave about 8 inches loose and wrap the ribbon around the base weaving it in between the flowers.

Secure the ribbon on the corsage with a knot and that's it.

Let the ends of the ribbon hang loose.  I tied another length of ribbon around it all so I would have four strands of ribbon hanging down on the one side of the corsage.

And the corsage is finished.



The rest of the story goes like this....

Boy tells girl about the flowers he picked out for a corsage.
Girl gets excited that she will be getting a corsage for the dance.
Boy forgets corsage at home.
Boy has a lot to learn.