simple DIY flowers: anemone bouquet

wedding season is upon us so i thought that it would be fun to do a series of wedding flower posts.  

i've been loving anemones lately, so when i was at the flower mart looking for something to use in a bridal bouquet post and saw these lovely jewel toned numbers i knew that they were it.

i chose these hot pink spray roses and deep purple sweet peas to complement the anemones.

i removed most of the lateral branches from the spray roses so that they didn't create too much bulk.  then i started with a stem of the roses in the center and added a couple of anemones...

...then a stem of the  sweet peas.  then i gave the whole thing a little turn (for more on how to put together a hand-tied bouquet see this post).

i continued on, adding flowers 2-3 at a time, making sure that i was keeping a rounded shape (looking in a mirror can help with this).

when i was happy with the fullness of the bouquet, i trimmed the stems to the length that i wanted (i wanted a smallish bouquet so i trimmed them pretty short).  

at this point, if your bouquet isn't for a wedding, you could just plop them in a vase...

...OR, if you want this to be a hand-held bouquet, you can wrap the stems with floral tape.  the tape is stretchy and sticks to itself so it's pretty easy to work with.  i taped about 2 1/2 inches of the stems to keep the whole thing secure.

i then took my ribbon (in this case black grosgrain but, as usual, use what works with your colors/style) and pinned it at the bottom of the taped area and wrapped it around until all of the tape was covered.  i then put two more pins in to keep the ribbon in place.

after that i took another length of the ribbon and tied a bow around the bouquet, covering the pins.  and that was it!

anemones come in a variety of colors and i think that they have a chic and interesting look with their ruffly petals and their black centers.  consider them to add a bit of cool to a bridal (or any) bouquet.

xo, c