D-I-Why? Project #1 = FAIL

I mentioned before that I am not a crafty gal. Well, now I've got proof.

Both because of the budget and because it just keeps things simple, I want to make my own bouquet. Here's a reminder of my inspiration photo, except I'd like a solid red carnation bouquet.

I had a long lunch break last week and after doing a little damage to my debit card at Sephora, I decided on a whim to run over to HEB to pick up some red carnations. All they had were some mini ones so I picked up the two tiny bunches they had and decided to stop at another store on my way back to work. No red carnations, mini or otherwise. Instead, they had some mini red and white carnations. I'm a big fan of natural-looking florals (i.e., no lime green carnations or blue gerber daisies) and I know I want a solid-color bouquet, but I also knew I'd need more blooms to work with so I went ahead and bought them.

This is what the two kinds of mini carnations look like.

Unsatisfied still, I stopped at yet another HEB on my way home that afternoon (seriously, you can't shake a Mexican martini without hitting an HEB in Austin) and finally found some full-size red carnations, what I'd wanted all along. There were only three small bunches but I figured I could just mix them all together. (Spoiler alert: I figured wrong.)

Here is a photo of the full-size carnations. Aren't they gorgeous?

Even though I love fresh flowers, I rarely buy any so just having some in the house was really nice. So nice, in fact, that I let a couple days pass before even attempting my DIY bouquet. (You can call it laziness, but I prefer inertia.)

Here is what they looked like sitting idly on the table.

Finally on Sunday afternoon, the alternative of watching the NBA playoffs led me to try to make something out of my pretty flowers. Instead of finding a YouTube video or reading past Weddingbee posts on the subject, I decided to just wing it.

Big mistake. First off, after I cleaned and cut the stems, I realized I hadn't even remembered to get floral tape or wire or ribbon or those lovely pearl-topped pins or anything to hold this sucker together. Ooops. I decided to try and make due with the rubber bands they came with.

Next, I began positioning the full-size carnations into a bouquet. I thought they looked pretty good, but could have been fuller so I reached for the mini carnations. Mistake #2. The mini carnations were two to three blooms per stem. I don't doubt that someone with only a slightly higher skill level could have arranged them so it would work, but I couldn't. In order to keep the height the same, I had to remove the smaller blooms from the longer stem, and then there wasn't enough stem to keep them all together with the larger flowers.

So all in all, I spent $22 and 20 minutes on my sad little Charlie Brown bouquet.

I still love the color and the look of the flowers, and I'm sure it would look better with more flowers packed more tightly. You can see how uneven and sparse it looks from the top.

Even though my badly-planned attempt didn't yield stellar results, I still ended up with three small flower arrangements to scatter around the apartment. And that makes me a happy Backyard Bride.

Anyway, what is it people always say? If at first you don't succeed, buy more pretty flowers and try again? I think that's right.