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Keepsakes. Memorabilia. Trinkets. Call them what you want but us sentimental types all agree they have personal value for so many reasons. I used to spend a large portion of my free time scrapbooking and obviously as a photographer my pictures and images are especially important to me. But what about the other “stuff”? Say… maybe… a bouquet from a special occasion? This last year Q and I renewed our wedding vows and I’ve been hanging on to my bouquets knowing I wanted to make them into more of a keepsake. I’ve seen several versions of shadow boxes out there for wedding bouquets but I wanted something more open(no glass) and stand alone(no stationary/invitations). Moving around some old canvases I noticed the frames are essentially the perfect size and shape for my version of a bouquet box!
The bouquets I put together myself(very long story) using artificial flowers so they’ve held up extremely well. And the real touch… sigh… if I had only known about this at my actual wedding! I tell every bride about these flowers because I have been that impressed. These are some next level blooms y’all!
*Side note: if you had a real flower bouquet you could still do this project! Just preserve the flowers first and take a little extra care when assembling and cleaning. Preserved flowers can be a bit fragile but absolutely gorge so totally worth it!
I stripped the blooms off the stems and separated most of the foliage. Once I had the blooms cut I just flipped over the canvas to see how many would fit and/or how many canvases they would fill. My bouquets filled two canvases(10″ and 12″). Obviously these were some well loved canvases…. Ha!
I slapped a couple coats of Navy paint(sticking to my Navy/Rose Gold palette) on both sides of the canvases. No need to be concerned with any brush strokes, lumps, or bumps as the majority of the canvas is actually just covered in flowers or facing a wall. These two were covered in hot glue, tags, and super thick coats of acrylic from a project too old for me to remember! But hey, extra points for upcycling old supplies right?
Once the paint dried I simply hot glued the blooms into place. I anchored a couple blooms to the sides and the rest were attached straight to the fabric. Also, I added in the shell picks and some faux coral. Which, of course, I hit with a couple coats of my favorite Rose Gold
The corner of our loft/master bedroom has a small sitting area which is totally a work in progress. I’ve slowly been adding pieces and testing items… but Ive got a few big ideas brewing so I’m sure this will be changing. For now, the bouquet boxes were the perfect wall art for the area. They have only been hanging a couple days but they make me smile every time I come up the stairs!
So what keepsakes have you decorated with? Did your wedding or renewal bouquet get upcycled? You know I’d love to hear all about it in the comments! Happy Friday peeps!