Saturday, March 12, 2011

How To Make A Corsage










The Basic Corsage:

Fresh Flower Corsage Technique





Corsages are actually three boutonnieres you put together.
Use odd numbers for your flowers...you want one, three, or five flowers in your corsage.

Gather your flowers together and tape stem wrap around the stems. Floral tape or stem wrap comes in green and white. Now add your baby's breath, gypsophilia, tiny forget me nots or whatever filler you have chosen. This should be placed sparingly between the flowers. Now place your corsage leaves over the stems below the flowers. You can now wrap it all together with floral tape. Trim your stems if you need to. Add your ribbon bow. Wrap the stems in ribbon if you want. Put a corsage pin into the stems to use later.

You may need to use some wiring techniques to support your flowers heads :
To see more on wiring and taping techniques - See more information on working with fresh flowers
The Basic Corsage:

Silk Flower Corsage Technique:
Use wire cutters to shorten stems.

The wire stem of the flower and green can usually be utilized instead of rewiring and taping. If you need only one, two or three inches of stem, use stem wrap over it first and cut it to the desired length.


If you need the stem to be longer, lighter or more pliable, cut the stem below the flower to three or four inches and tape a floral wire over it.


Filler flowers and greens can be added to each flower with hot glue. Filler flowers can be babies breath, corsage rose leaves or any smaller flowers that will accent the main flower in the corsage.




Single cluster corsage: Add the filler and greens to the flower by wrapping the wire stems of each around the flower. Always add the filler first to surround the flower and the greens last to frame it in. Cut excess wire off after wrapping around twice. This keeps the cluster from getting too heavy


Adding clusters together: Make three to five single clusters. Wrap the stem of one around the next to form the corsage. A bow can be added at any point by wrapping its wire onto a cluster.


Materials needed:
Silk flowers
Green stem wrap tape
Floral wire
Corsage pins and corsage leaves
Ribbons

Wiring preserved rose heads - Pierce Method

This is where the wire substitutes as the stem. The wires are inserted into the base of the flower, folded over to form a hairpin, and acts as an artificial stem. This method is great to use for corsages and boutonnieres Fresh flower corsages need to be used right away. You have no water source so they will start to wilt. To keep them fresh overnight place ia plastic bag (not tightly) and place in your refrigerator. With gardenias I have placed a wet paper towel in a ball in the plastic bag with them and they stay fresh looking for days.

RE: Preserved roseheads: This method of wiring is great for attaching preserved roseheads. See more info on wiring and taping stems.




Push the floral wire through the bottom of the flower. Where the stem would normally be.




Pull the end of the wire through the bottom of the flower again. You are making a wire hair pin.




Twist both wires together to make a wire stem.

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