Naomi – Author at Plaster & Disaster

I recently reassured a friend who is working on her first home renovation by saying things like “the decisions I stressed over don’t seem like a big deal now” and “I’ve found it very easy to live with my ‘mistakes’ because overall the places still looks awesome.” And for the most part, this is totally true and I wasn’t lying to her because I haven’t regretted any of the design decisions I made in my renovation.

Except that I was lying a little bit, because there is one decision I have regretted A LOT: getting raw wood windows, rather than white.

We had originally planned on getting the windows that came already in white, and figured we could live with any slight difference from our trim color. However, our contractor (who was extraordinary and overall gave amazing advice and did really beautiful work) talked us into getting wood. It was cheaper, and we were doing a lot of windows, so it was definitely tempting from a budget perspective. It will also be really easy to paint yourself, he said. Just slap some paint on there, and you’re done, he said.

Well, it is true that it is easy, but it is a time consuming and big project! We painted the trim when we painted each room, but didn’t paint the sashes because we knew how long it would take. So for literally years, we’ve lived with the window sashes still raw wood. We always had more fun and interesting projects that we’d rather be working on. But it drove me slightly crazy because it was an incomplete element in every room, and snuck its way into some of my favorite pictures of my home.

I regretted this one so much because, to save just a little money, I was costing myself a whole boat-load of time. And time is what I have the least of, it seems!

However, I’m thrilled to say that we’ve finally put this one behind us! As part of my “slow but steady” bedroom makeover, I vowed to finally paint the window sashes in that room, and I figured that it would be most convenient overall to tackle this project all at once. I’ve been chipping away at it over the course of the last month (don’t judge… I’ve been busy) and they are finally all painted!

Forgive the photo quality of the after images… my camera is still broken so I’m shooting with my cell phone.

This was definitely a pain. I started by taping 104 separate panes because all of our windows are divided light.

That is a lot of window taping.

A lot of window taping.

Hopefully that gets the point across. I had six regular windows to do (with twelve divided panes each) and four that were in our bay windows (with eight divided panes each).

I decided to tape, rather than paint right on to the glass and scrape off with a razor after, because I think it is faster overall and leads to cleaner lines. I know some people swear by that trick, but I’ve only regreted it at the end if I don’t tape. I think that time investment at the front end makes the rest of the project so much easier.

I hit them with a coat of primer and then two coats of paint (my white is Chantilly Lace by Benjamin Moore) in semi-gloss to match all of my trim. I had to do this in stages to paint the part of the window that is covered when it is closed.

It was also tedious because of all the detail work. I used a normal brush for most of it, but a small craft brush to paint around all of the hardware.

As my final coat was drying, I removed the tape. THIS WAS SO SATISFYING. All of you “scrape the paint off with a razor” people have no idea what you’re missing!

Also, because I had used the last of several different rolls of tape (so as to avoid having to run out to the hardware store) I got to take advantage of a little natural experiment and test out which type of tape did the best job on windows. The results will surprise you!

I had three kinds on hand, Scotch Blue, the regular green Frog Tape, and the yellow Frog Tape designed for delicate surfaces.

The Delicate Surface Frog Tape worked the best by far! Perhaps because it is extra thin and a bit more flexible, it was easy to get it to tightly seal on the glass and then to pull it up without tearing. I was pretty surprised by this, I had actually thought it would be the worst of the bunch and that it would be tough to remove in one piece, but it surprised me. I had virtually no “after work” to do on those sections, while on the others I had to go back around with a razor to clean off the small leaks and cut out a few places where tape had torn and been left behind.

After that, the green Frog Tape and Scotch Blue were pretty comparable, but the Frog Tape was probably a little better.

Because I had done all of this taping, painting, and scraping, I was able to convince Brad to go around afterward and clean the windows. Win! I am so happy with them now that they are all fresh, white, and clean!

It makes such a big difference in making our house look finished. I actually had no idea how unfinished it looked before…

I can’t believe we waited this long to do this!

But while I am thrilled it is done, I do wish that I had just had it this way from the start. It was tempting while in the middle of a big renovation to try to save as many pennies as we could and do as much ourselves as possible. But time and sanity are valuable, too!

I hope you’ve all got one more DIY wedding flowers post in you! Now that I’ve impressed you with my deep understanding of the international flower trade, showed off the table centerpieces and arbor arrangements that we made, and wrote a ridiculous 3000 words (!!) on all of the tips and tricks my Mom and I used to pull this off, we get to end on a high note: the bouquets! That’s what you’ve been waiting for, right?

And we won’t even play around before getting right to the best part and talking about the bridal bouquet! Making this was the part that I was most excited for (and most nervous about). This bouquet is in all of the pictures and it needs to work with everything – the bride’s personality, the dress, and the colors and feel of the day. Fortunately, we weren’t flying blind because we had our pinterest inspiration board to fall back on. In the months leading up to the wedding we’d been sharing images and Abby had given feedback on some of the bouquets that we found. Specifically, she said this was her favorite:

DIY wedding flowers inspiraiton - found on Style Me Pretty - Plaster & Disaster

Can’t find the exact source post for this, other than it links back to Style Me Pretty

Gorgeous, right? And also pretty intimidaing…

However, it was a great place to work from, and a solid guide given that her wedding colors included purple. Beyond that, the styles that she liked seemed to all be loose/wild arrangements and feature a wide range of blooms of many shapes, sizes, and colors.

When we got the flower shipment and started dividing flowers into the different arrangements, I started with the bridal bouquet and picked out about 22 stems featuring lilies and a variety of flowers in a pallette of purple and blue, with a few hits of pink.

As you can see, the assortment contains some of all three of the flower “types” that I talked about in my tips and tricks post. Main flowers include lilies, peonies, and hydrangeas, accent flowers were delphinium, wax flowers, queen anne’s lace, and lisianthus, and greens included solomon seal and also some cuttings we brought from home.

How to DIY a Wedding Bouquet

Putting together the bouquet wasn’t too hard, although it did take a little time. My Mom and I had prepared by reading about the process in “Fresh from the Field Wedding Flowers” by Lynn Byczynski (affiliate link – read our policies) and watching a video tutorial that came along with it. (I also made a few practice while standing awkwardly in the fake flower aisle at Michaels… something I don’t really want to talk about.)

Marcia and I were then on bouquet-assembly duty, while my Mom and Harriet focused on the arrangements.

The first step is to lay all of the flowers out so that you can really see what you are working with. 22 stems is a lot! The video had shown them all displayed from largest to smallest, and I found this really helpful in making sure that I was keeping a good balance as I worked.

Next, I gently removed nearly all of the leaves from the stems, leaving only a few at the top of some flowers. (If Abby hadn’t liked a more wild look to her bouquets, I probably would have removed all of the leaves).

To put it together, I started by gathering a trio of the sturdier flowers together in an arrangement that I liked to form a base to work from. I knew I wanted to feature lilies to echo the inspiration image.

From there, I simply added flowers to build out the bouquet! I put them on in a circular pattern around the base that I started with.

The video had shown a way to hold the bouquet that was really a crucial tip! As you add flowers, you orient each of the stems in the same direction so they fan out, and you hold them gently where they come together. This helps the flowers lay snug against one another, and also prevents you from jostling them too much as you maneuver the bouquet and keep adding to it.

I kept adding to the outside, rotating as I went and trying to keep it balanced on all sides.

It was fun to see the bouquet continue to grow and start to come together!

The final layer was to add some extra greenery around the outside.

However, getting the flowers in place was only the first step! The tricky part was getting it all to hold together as a solid bouquet using floral tape, ribbon, and pins.

The first step is the floral tape. This is strange stuff, and it definitely took me a few tries to get comfortable using it. It comes off of a roll like regular tape, but isn’t super sticky. You need to give it a stretch to make it tacky, but also not pull too hard or you’ll break it clear in half (not that I’m speaking from experience, or anything). It goes around the stems, wrapping over itself to get a good hold.

I did two bands of it, the first at the point where all the stems come together and the second an inch or two below that.

Of course, this floral tape is neither very good at holding flowers together, nor the sort of pretty wrapping that Abby probably had in mind, which is why most wedding bouquets are then finished off with ribbon.

We had brought some vibrant purple ribbon to use on the bridal bouquet. I cut off a generous piece and wrapped the stems in it, careful to wrap over the edge to hold it in place, and to keep the ribbon taut as I went. This is really what holds the stems exactly in place, so it is good to get it nice and tight! To form the end, I just doubled the ribbon over itself, and secured with floral pins (pointing upward at an angle, so as not to stab right through the bouquet to the other side).

Before or after the ribbon is also a good time to cut off the extra stem legnths for a more manageable bouquet.

Here is the final result!

It is not exactly like the inspiration image, but I think it definitely speaks to it!

I love how the colors came together and how its got a bit of a looser shape to it.

DIY Wedding Flowers - How to make the bouquets - Plaster & Disaster

Shout out to Marcia who very patiently helped take or model in photos throughout this process!

The Bridesmaid’s Bouquets

Of course, it doesn’t stop at the bridal bouquet: we had five bridesmaids to also prepare for! They were to be wearing a variety of dark blue dresses, so we had planned from the start to feature yellow in their bouquets. Yellow goes with just abuot any blue, so we figured this was a safe bet!

When the flowers arrived, we immediately fell in love with using a bunch of small sunflowers as the yellow element, and we divided out some blues (hydrangeas, delphinium) and a variety of white flowers, as well (lilies, peonies, etc.).

When it came to add greens, we used stem of solomon seal and some bupleurum – a wild green that looks a bit like tiny dogwood flowers – to echo the wild elements in Abby’s bouquet. We bound these in white ribbon.

I think these are really fun! They’re a little smaller than the bridal bouqet and feature different colors, but I think they share the same vibe.

For the Maid of Honor (Abby’s sister, Becky) we wanted to make it just a bit more special by adding a few stems of snapdragons, her favorite flower. It turned out pretty cool! I also think it is a good illustration of how adding or subtracting one element can really make a difference.

I was definiely most worried about this part of the whole DIY wedding flowers endeavor, but it was much more manageable than I thought it would be! The bouquets were totally doable since we set aside enough time to not feel rushed while we were working on them. And they were SO FUN!

What do you think? Would you do DIY bouquets? Do you like this look, or do you prefer them more formal/tighter?