Extremely Cool Valentine Project!

And I should add a very easy one too! Before I start though, I want to point out that this is my second post of the day....my first one was also an untraditional Valentine for the Die Cut Diva Challenge! I am planning to add this to the Die Cut Divas Untraditional Valentine Challenge as I think that chocolate flowers are untraditional and we did uses die cuts in the project.  In fact, my die cutting machine is a Grand Caliber and I was so pleased to be able to fit 13 various foliage dies onto each tray and pass through!  That made the the die cutting so easy. For my project another mother and I were in charge of putting together the flowers for parent's night for our son's swim team.  Traditionally we order flowers to be given out to the parent's but by the time the boys get all the way up to the balcony (where the spectators sit) the flowers are usually "broken headed" or limp or just pretty damaged looking.  I think perhaps the boys use them like "light sabers" all the way up the stairs to the balcony.  Anyways, the flowers are not cheap to begin with and by the time they reach the parents they are pretty lousy looking and only get worse as they are lanquishing in the humid pool bleachers amongst crushing winter coats.  So, the other mom said she had an idea to make roses out of Hersey Kisses. She came over and because our team is so large (36 - 40 swimmer and divers) we decided to go ahead and make these little bouquets for roughly 20 cents apiece.  First we made the roses.....approximately 260 of them!  And, actually, they went really, really fast. With two people we each made 22 bouquets...we made extra for the coaches to give to their little girls too.  Each rose is made of two Hersey kisses glued dotted together with wire and floral tape.

 In fact, your supply list is:

1. Red or Pink Cellophane (big rolls sold at dollar store) cut into 4 1/2 inch squares.

2. Hersey Kisses

3. Floral Wires....we cut ours and made two flowers from each original wire.

4. Floral Tape.

5. Something to wrap around the sticky floral tape.

Then these are the supplies that we added to our bouquets.....but aren't necessary.

6. Doilies....can uses store bought or cut your own out of think printer paper.

7. Foliage....we used all my "leaf" die cuts so we have maples leaves, ferns pine needles ete....hahah

8. Ribbon.

 Here is a front view of how the roses look before we began assembling them into bouquets.

And here is a side view.  We cut our roses down to be part of something smaller but I have seen them left long and wrapped to mimic long stem roses.....

Then, we folded and taped cheap rectangular birthday  "treat" bags to resemble the shape of floral bags and stuck in 5 roses that we first wrapped in a doily.  Then we put in various foliage that was die cut.  Finally, we wrapped a ribbon around each bouquet and tied it with a foam heart that we glued a small "thank you" charm to.  Here is a close up shot of the bouquet.

And here is a group shot of all the bouquets that we made.  Isn't this a cute idea?  And how sweet would it be to give to a teacher, grandparent or elderly neighbor for a Valentine's Day gift?

Well, this isn't quite a tutorial but it sure became a "how to" without me planning on it!  If you have any questions please ask and I will be more than happy to help you!  We found all supplies for cheap and used lots of scrap paper for the dies....as you can see...the foliage is all different papers!  Thanks for stopping by!

Be well,

Sheila