It's a Penguin Life: Accessories: Flower girl

Did you get your fill of cuteness after seeing our flower girl's ensemble? Well, make some more room! Here is her basket:

It's hard to believe that it started off purple. Sorry, bad blogger, I completely forgot to take "before" photo. Jake's mom gave us cute Easter baskets two Easter's ago. I decided to hang on to them. Good thing, one of them came in handy.

I painted the basket white, hand wrapped the handle with satin ribbon, lined it with a layer of tulle, and added a re-engineered silk peony. Note to DIYers. DO NOT FOLLOW IN MY FOOTSTEPS. JUST GO AND BUY A WHITE BASKET.

I spent entirely way too much time on this basket. First I started off with the wrong paint. I wanted a slightly shiny tinge to the paint, so I bought glossy acrylic paint. Glossy acrylic does not stick to basket material very well. After two coats of the gloss, I finally went with a coat of regular acrylic. Finally the purple was gone. However, now I was left with a coarse texture, so another coat of the gloss. 4, maybe 5 coats of paint later, I had a white basket.

I got lazy with the paint job, so I tried to hide the imperfections with a couple layers of tulle on the inside of the basket. Hot glue + tulle = ouch.

Also, ribbon wrapping a curved handle is not an easy task. After awhile I had to tell myself "screw it, no one will notice, just get it done."

Not long after we started planning our wedding, I became smitten with hair flowers. I wanted a big one in my hair, a statement piece if you will. I went out and purchased a silk peony, feathers, and a hair clip. That material sat around for months and months. About a year later, I completely scrapped the idea, but couldn't return the flower as I had already tore it apart (oops).

I proceeded to re-engineer the flower. Layers of tulle were hot glued in to create a fuller flower. The flower was then hot glued to layers of felt to create a base. I wanted the flower to be usable for multiple things, not just a basket. I added two ways to thread ribbon through the base.

Maybe M will want to wear the flower as a belt after the ceremony. Although, this flower is probably as big as her head!