MY SPECIAL (LITTLE) LADIES

Mr. Latte and I love kids. Many of our friends have children and we've been privileged to watch them grow from tiny newborn babies to loveable huggable kids. Most of them are between the ages of 3 and 5...making them the PERFECT age for flower girls and ring boys!

Now the hard part...which of these kiddies do we ask to be with us on our big day? We finally decided that to be fair, I would ask 2 of my favorite little boys to be our ring boys and Mr. Latte would ask 2 of his favorite little girls to be our flower girls. I'm all about fairness.

The 2 flower girls are twins and will be 3 1/2 years old by our wedding date. They are actually flower girls-to-be, as Mr. Latte hasn't asked them yet! They are adorable little girls and our wedding would be their flower girl debut. For this reason, I wanted Mr. Latte to give them something special when he asked them. I'm sure they would've been perfectly content with a lollipop or a cupcake, but c'mon peeps, those aren't wedding related! Plus, I was feeling the urge to craft so I decided to make (little) lady versions of my bridesmaids flower ideas...felt flower bouquets!

I went to Michael's and picked up the following:

12 sheets of felt (3 each in pink, ivory, brown and green)

2 packages of pipe cleaners (1 each in green and white)

4 skeins of embroidery floss (1 each in pink, ivory, brown and green)

1 package of needles

1 bag of batting

The bouquet of felt flowers was quick and easy to make. I started by twisting together 3 pieces of green pipe cleaners to create the stem of the flower. I made the pistil (yeah, I had to google that) by making cuts down a long strip of felt and rolling it around the stem. I used my hot glue gun (one of my FAVORITE crafting tools) to glue the pistil down. Now on to the petals...

(pistils glued on stems)

I created each flower petal by hot gluing a white pipe cleaner down on a petal shaped piece of felt. I used a white pipe cleaner because I didn't want to risk a darker one showing through the petal. I then blanket stitched each petal closed. When I had stitched 3/4 of the petal, I stuffed in some batting before finishing off the stitch. I made 5 petals of the same color for each flower. I did the same thing for the leaves of the flowers, but used green felt, green floss and green pipe cleaners.

(inside of petal)

(finished petal)

Next, I twisted the 5 petals onto each stem, making sure that the edges of each pipe cleaner weren't showing. This is important because you could feel the metal on the edge and that is NOT kid-friendly! For the same reason, I hot glued a piece of green felt around the stems of the bouquet...i didn't want the girls to have metal pieces pinching their little fingers! I finished the whole bouquet off by wrapping a pink ribbon around the stems and added a touch of personalization by tying a ceramic letter of their first initial with a white satin bow.

(finished flowers, 2 of each color)

(pink ribbon...very wedding-esque)

(felt flower bouquets for the little ladies!)

I hope the girls like them! I figure that they could use them when they play dress-up, or maybe even use them to practice walking down the aisle. :)

On a side note...my favorite part is that the pipe cleaners inside each petal allow them to bend! So the flowers can either be in full bloom or in more of a bud shape! AND...did you notice the color palette? Look familiar???