Tutorial: Real Shell Accents for a Wedding Bouquet

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Any floral arrangement can be given seaside charm by adding some stems with genuine shells.

This tutorial is similar to my Crystal Stems project, but is designed to work with items (like shells) that don't have a hole drilled through like Swarovski crystal beads.  

Materials and Equipment Needed for Real Shell Floral Picks:

  • floral wire
  • wire cutters
  • real shells
  • hot glue gun
  • electric drill
  • screw-in hook

Cut a length of wire approximately three feet long.  Fold in half.

Loop the center of the wire over a screw-in hook in a power drill.  Hold the two ends of the wire together with one hand, and start the drill spinning with the other.  In seconds, you'll have a perfectly wound floral wire stem!

You'll be left with a piece of wire that has one end with a tiny loop; that's the end I like to stick in the shell, because it has a little more surface area.  Use your hot glue gun to glue one end of the wire in a shell. 

The shell-topped floral wire picks can then be easily incorporated in any kind of floral arrangement.

A bouquet, a centerpiece--anything, really!  I'll bet there are all sorts of other things I could do with wired shells, actually.  Wouldn't an entire bouquet of shells (maybe with some pearls) be a cool bouquet if someone didn't want to use flowers at all?  

Nicole Wills, creator of Tikkido

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