You say boutonnieres

I say buttonholes. You say tomayto, I say tomato. You say bouquet, I say bucket - wait a minute...

Instead of having bridesmaids and groomsmen, my sister has opted to have all of her nieces and nephews form the bridal party instead. It's a lovely idea, but with nine flowergirls and four pageboys ranging in ages from 2-13, it makes for a rather large group to cater for their bouquets and buttonholes.

Obviously, a group of this size impacts on my sister's wedding budget, but she insists upon having all of them in the bridal party, so we have been looking at ways to reduce costs by using alternatives to fresh flowers. With her blessing, the challenge for me has been to make something for each niece and nephew that looks passable and doesn't cost too much - without it looking like it didn't cost much.

Because not everyone has settled upon colours and styles for the pageboys and flower girls' outfits, it seemed logical to keep the flowers fairly neutral, which brings me to my latest project.

A couple of nights ago, I spent an hour making these buttonholes. They were surprisingly quick to put together. I made an extra one for our little baby nephew to wear, even though he may not be in the official bridal party, and I am debating making some extras anyway in case of buttonhole malfunctions on the day. You never know, it is only fabric glue holding these babies together.

To make the roses, I used the same technique to make the crepe paper flowers, but this time I dabbed some fabric glue around intermittently to keep the 'petals' in place. Then I wound some charcoal yarn around the stem and glued it in place with a small safety pin inserted in the back. Hopefully the charcoal will be unobtrusive on their suit lapels, but I am considering redoing them in lighter twine in case it's a hot day and the boys end up wearing white shirts instead of jackets or waistcoats.

It was not as fiddly as I thought to make these buttonholes and I really enjoyed the process. I'm already looking ahead to the next project on my list, the flowergirl posies. Something tells me they won't be as quick to make.

Joining in for Show and Tell again this week. Check it out for more creative inspiration.