I Win

I told you about my floral fail and how I went to the pros for some much needed guidance. Today I share with you the results of my second attempt at making a fresh pomander. This time, I might have known what I was doing. And if not, I pretended to know. Either way, I got a result and this time me = happy.


Mr. Tortolito and I had a free Saturday morning, so we jumped on our bikes and rode to the LA Flower District. We picked up our crafting supplies as well as some carnations, mini roses, and a couple bunches of mums.




We began with a mum pomander first. The first step was to secure our ribbon to the styrofoam ball using pins:



We yanked the mums off the stems, poked them through the middle with a pearl pin, and stuck em into the styrofoam ball one by one.



Keep on poking in those mums until the styrofoam is completely covered, and you're dunzo!


We made another pomander using red/yellow mums, and then combined whatever we had left over to make a pom that resembled a soccer ball. These were super easy once we got the hang of it.



After our success with using styrofoam to create our pomander, we moved on to the real challenge: using an oasis ball.

We secured the ribbon to these balls in the same manner as we had for the styrofoam balls. Next we wet the oasis ball and allowed it to hang until the water stopped dripping.


After the drippage stops, we started poking in our carnations. We cut the carnation stems to approx. 2 inches since we wouldn't be using any pins to insert these flowers into the foam.


Apparently we didn't follow Nancy's directions for this one. We used regular sized carnations instead of mini carnations, and the head of the stem was too big to push into the foam. It left us with lots of bald spots. woops!


Not to fear! We filled in the bald spots as best as we could with the mini roses. It looked a bit better but I still think the mini carnations would look much nicer.


And there you have it. I am happy to not report any fails this time! Something to keep in mind, however, was that the mums shrank considerably within the next 24 hours. I left them hanging around my home with the air conditioner on but you could definitely see some bald spots between the mums the next day. The carnation pomander, however, survived just fine! If I decided to go with this project for the wedding, I'm not sure how I would preserve them for over 24 hours but I guess that's something I can worry about later. For now, at least I know it's possible to make them on our own.

Cost breakdown? You got it!

1 bunch of mums OR carnations from the LA flower district: $8
1 styrofoam ball from Moskatels(craft store in the flower district): $2
1 oasis ball from Moskatels: $4.50
1 roll of ribbon from Moskatels: $5.00
1 box of pearl pins from Moskatels: $3.25

Mum pomander: ~$15/each (considering that we only used some of the ribbon and have plenty left)

Carnation pomander: ~$22-$25 (I forgot how much the mini roses cost! I think they were about $10ish)

Anywho, it was a fun project and can potentially save lots of money if we decide to make these for the wedding. What do you think? Is it worth it?

(In case you missed it on my previous post, Nancy's tutorial can be found here. Enjoy!)