Fabric Boutonnieres tutorial

Hi, all!  I’m Chelsea. I have a little blog called Lovely Indeed where I document all of the crazy DIY projects I’ve been doing to prepare for my wedding (along with some other lovely things thrown in for good measure). When Cyd recently asked me to stop by The Sweetest Occasion every once in a while and share some DIY love, I just about fell out of my chair. I’m an avid fan and reader, and I’ve gotta say – I’m super honored to be here. Now on with the show!
Get out your glue guns, kids – these ain’t your mama’s boutonnieres. Today I thought I’d share a little DIY project that I’m actually using in my own wedding!  When my fiance (we’ll call him Mr. Lovely) and I decided to do fabric boutonnieres, I was a little intimidated. I did some research and found about a zillion different styles, but none that felt quite right. So I came up with this design – clean, sweet, and above all:  simple.  Let’s do this.
Here’s what you’ll need.


1. Scissors
2. Various fabric scraps: greens for leaves and another color for flowers
3. Narrow ribbon in a coordinating color (I used Offray 3/8-inch polyester in Antique White.)
4. Decorative pins (Can be found in the scrapbooking or jewelry-making sections of your preferred craft store.)
5. Glue gun
6. Needle and thread in coordinating color
7. Pin backs (Can be found in the jewelry-making section of your preferred craft store.)
8. Stem of artificial berries
Begin by printing and cutting out the shapes. These will be your leaves and flower petals. (For each groomsman’s boutonniere, I used one large leaf, one small leaf, and six small petals. For Mr. Lovely’s, I added a flower made of six large petals.) Once you’ve cut out the shapes on paper, pin the paper to your fabric and cut around it.


Once you’ve cut out six petals, thread your needle and begin to sew the flowers. Fold a petal in half and thread it onto your needle, inserting the needle near the flat edge of the petal. Do this with the six petals. After you’ve threaded the sixth, connect the ends by sewing through the underside of the first petal one more time. Secure this last stitch with a knot and cut your thread.

Fire up your glue gun, and glue the small leaf onto the big leaf. Cut a sprig of berries to about three inches, and trim the bottom inch so that it is clean and smooth. Glue the berries to the leaves.

Put a generous amount of glue at the base of your leaves and to the right of the berry stem, and gently glue your flower in place.

Cut a four-inch length of ribbon to wrap around the stem of the berries. Begin by placing a small dot of glue on the back of the boutonniere, at the base of the leaf. Wrap ribbon once. Place another dot of glue and wrap again, repeating with the glue on the back side until you reach the bottom of the stem. Trim ribbon so that the end is hidden on the back side, and secure it with a final dot of glue.

Attach a decorative pin to the ribbon in a place of your choosing.  Glue a pin back to the back side of your boutonniere.

And finally, pin it to your fella’s lapel and enjoy the day!  (And bask in the fact that you spent about $10 total.)



That’s all for now! Hope you’ve enjoyed our little boutonniere extravaganza. Many thanks to Cyd for letting me crash the DIY party – here’s to many more crafty times ahead. See you next time!  xoxo
Told you she’s pretty rad. Chelsea will be back a few times a month to share her DIY ideas so stay tuned and be sure to give her a warm welcome to The Sweetest Occasion family!
Source: thesweetestoccasion.com