A Styled Shoot at The Royal Navy Submarine Museum

I Heart Buttons was lucky enough to be asked to create a bouquet for a styled shoot taking place at The Royal Navy Submarine Museum. For this shoot, I wanted to create something a little different but still include buttons. I thought how lovely it would be to try and replicate a bouquet of fresh flowers, so combined vintage buttons and paper flowers with a sprinkling of artificial gyp.

VENUE - Royal Navy Submarine Museum www.submarine-museum.co.uk

PHOTOGRAPHER - Alisha's Events Photography www.alishaseventsphotography.co.uk

MODELS - Carla Davidson & Robert Whittaker

HAIR & MAKE UP - Eye Candy www.eyecandyhairandmakeup.co.uk

COORDINATION - Amethyst Weddings www.amethystweddings.co.uk

TABLE LINEN CUTLERY & GLASSWARE - Bezani Catering www.bezanicatering.co.uk

CHAIR COVERS, REAL FLOWER CENTER PIECES & BOUQUET - Wedding Flowers by Lucy www.flowersbylucy.moonfruit.com

TYPEWRITER & VINTAGE CHINA CROCKERY - Indulge in Vintage www.indulgeinvintage.co.uk

TABLE PLAN, PLACE NAMES ETC - Wedding Invitation Creations www.weddinginvitationcreations.weebly.com

POST BOX & GUEST BOOK - Pretty Post Box www.prettypostbox.co.uk

UMBRELLAS, BUNTING, POM-POMS & SIGN - Pretty Weddings www.prettypostbox.co.uk

FAVOURS - Lovely Lollies www.lovelylolliesuk.com

CAKE & CUPCAKES - Kiss My Cake www.kissmycake.co.uk

MACARONS - Queen Bees www.qbtreats.co.uk

DRESS & HEADPIECE - Hannah Elizabeth Bridal http://hannahelizabethbridal.com

SUIT - Charles Gale Formal Hire www.charlesgale.co.uk

BUTTON BOUQUET & BUTTONHOLE - I Heart Button Bouquets www.iheartbuttons.co.uk

JEWELLERY - Georgianna www.georgianna.org.uk

National Wedding Show - Olympia London 2015

We had an amazing time this year exhibiting again at The National Wedding Show at Olympia, London.  We loved seeing our buttonhole and bouquet being modelled on the catwalk.  Here are a few photos from the weekend.

Beautiful cakes by www.genuinecakes.co.uk

Mother of the bride inspiration by www.nigelrayment.co.uk
Photo thanks to www.bridesmagazine.co.uk

Cars by Weddings by Driven

You can find more photos at www.thenationalweddingshow.co.uk

So, what can be added to my Button Bouquet or Buttonhole?

Since I Heart Buttons started out in 2011, I have had a lot of brides ask me if I am able to include items to their bouquets, such as sentimental items of jewellery (or buttons).  Personally, I think this is a great idea and am always happy to do this. So in today's blog I wanted to share with you some ideas for you to consider in how to make your button bouquet that extra bit special.

A Button RSVP

How about asking all your guests to send in some buttons with their RSVP? I know some of my brides have written a little poem to accompany the request.  This will leave the guests wondering what an earth is going on, but will be an amazing surprise for them to see. And this gives every guest a chance to add to your special day in a way that can be treasured forever.

This button bouquet was made for Kim, using buttons send in from the guests.

Here's another button bouquet created using all buttons from the bride's guests. (who has yet to be wed so no names being mentioned).

Material

So, we can add buttons and jewellery to your bouquets. How about some material? Perhaps you have some offcuts from your wedding dress? Or indeed from a wedding dress of a loved one?

These bouquets have used the offcuts of lace from Donna's wedding dress and I created the collars, covered the stems and added the lace as a leaf to her Best Little Man® Buttonhole

In fact, it could be material from anything sentimental. I made a button bouquet for Charlotte in 2012. As well as sending in sentimental buttons, she also sent me two pieces of material. One piece was from the nightdress she wore when she had her baby, and the other piece, was from the nightdress her mum wore when she gave birth to Charlotte. Now that is sentimental! I covered two buttons in each of the materials and they were included in her bouquet. Here's a photo - the buttons are the blue/white stripey one to the left of the bow brooch and another is the pink material with blue spots to the bottom right of the bow brooch

Including Hobbies / Interests

You may love playing the guitar or support Burnley FC... all these can be added to your button bouquet.  Either ask me to source your items or you can send them to me. Here are some examples:

This bouquet was made for Kelly, who is a massive Burnely FC Fan and sent me some of their shields to include in her bouquet (as well as having their team colours for her wedding colours).

Photo thanks to www.alfredandcophotography.co.uk

Penny wanted her dog to be included, so she sent me a brooch to represent her dachshund !

Barbara sent me an Incredible Hulk which had a sentimental meaning to her.

Cloud asked for a guitar to be included in her button bouquet. I found this gorgeous vintage mosaic guitar on Etsy which she loved.

We recently had the pleasure of creating Klair, from Love Umbrellas Button Bouquet for her wedding.  Klair sent in lots of items, including....... you guessed it... mini umbrellas! These were attached to the bouquet (you can see a couple hanging down at the bottom of this bouquet).

Tammy wed in the year of the 2012 Olympics and sent me a coin to add to the groom's buttonhole

Sentimental Items of Jewellery

Here are some items of jewellery that my brides have sent in to be included. Here is Sarah's bouquet, with her nan's locket attached to the top of the handle.

This button bouquet is named "Alice in Buttonland" and included a bracelet around the top of the stems which belonged to Sam's nan.

Ashley sent me her nan's bracelet which I took apart and included in her bouquet and also the groom's buttonhole.

Siobhan gave me her granddad's tie pin to include in her bouquet.

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Silver Hand Prints/Paw Prints

Another fabulous addition to your bouquet could be a Hand Print or Paw Print of a special person or animal. These are made by the wonderful Tasmia Trinkets & Charms.

Kelly had the hand prints of her children in her bouquet

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Zoe had her dog's paw imprinted into the silver charm and added to her bouquet.

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I hope this gives you some inspiration as to what can be included in your button bouquet to make it that extra bit special.

Lesa 

Lavender Garden Button Bouquet

Our latest Button Bouquet inspired by a Lavender Garden. We supplied Emily, (the lovely lady behind www.photographicblonde.com) with a couple of button bouquets for photo shoots last year. We love her work and asked if we could supply another bouquet for her most recent Trash the Dress Photo shoot which was a competition prize over at Rock N Roll Bride.

Emily has given us the most fantastic photos which we can now share with you!! We fell in love straight away with the location

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This bouquet is now available to purchase in my Shop.

You can read more about this shoot over on Emily's blog

www.photographicblonde.com

Buttonathon for the 2012 MOBO Awards

A couple of weeks ago a request was put out asking for items for the 2012 MOBO Awards. They ranged from decorating the tables to welcome packs and gifts to go in the green room. I Heart Buttons requested to make 350 Button Corsages for the Top Tier VIPs!  After a couple of days waiting to hear.. the answer was YES! They wanted my button corsages.  There were now less than three weeks to complete the mission.

First I had to think about how to incorporate the MOBO's into a button corsage. It was an obvious choice to have something music related... but what? I had seen music note buttons but time was short and, if being honest, I didn't feel these were right for my corsages - a bit too plasticky if you know what I mean. Then, a brainwave occurred and the music sheet button idea was in place. I had previously made buttons for a bride who wanted music incorporated into her bouquet. But that was just 5 buttons. I had to make 350... really? Do I have time? Hell yeah - let's go!! So with just 9 days to go I got ordering and making.

I wanted to make a 2 stem corsage, so in fact it was 700 stems I had to make.  Every time I wasn't sorting the kids out, I was making up stems. It seemed endless.

Was heading to my parents for a visit on 30 October for a few days.  The  button corsages needed to be with the MOBO organiser on 2nd November. Courier was booked for 1 November. So I brought all my kit with me to continue making at my parents.

By 10am on 31st October, all the stems were finally made up and just needed to be ribboned.  I had some black ribbon already plus a new 100 meter roll I had bought before I left. But OMG!!! I opened the new roll, and it was MIDNIGHT BLUE! I had been given MIDNIGHT BLUE! I could of cried!!

It was a Wednesday and local shops were either shut or only had 5 meters max in stock. A frantic phonecall to Orpington Hobbycraft and my high spirits returned! On arrival they had 50 meters left. PHEW!!! I rushed back home and continued ribboning.

Got to around 7pm and I knew then it would be a late one. Mother was helping me to add the strip of ribbon in the MOBO colours on the corsages. My 3 and 4 year old, along with my brother were unwrapping the boxes they were going to be presented in. It was like a wall of boxes on the table!

Mum put Rita Ora on the stereo to get us in the mood. Got to 1am and still the pile of corsages hadn't shifted! Crisps and coffee saw us through until daylight arrived.

It was around 6.30am when we had finally finished packing them all up, checking them all and then packing into one large box for delivery. Exhausted wasn't the word! A huge buttonathon but was over the moon as the corsages looked fab.

Courier came around midday and I could finally relax a little.

When I looked at Facebook today I was so so pleased to see https://www.facebook.com/MOBOofficial had posted up three photos of my corsages!

An amazing opportunity given to I Heart Buttons by so many many MANY thanks to Sue!

And a massive THANK YOU to David at www.illustrationbooth.com for all his help!

I Heart Buttons..... spreading the button lurve to the MOBO VIPs !!!

You can check out everything going on at their official Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/MOBOofficial

and twitter

https://twitter.com/MOBOAwards