Salvaging Droopy Roses in a Bouquet Using Straight Pins

Hi, there. I've been taking some time to recharge since Valentine's Day. But this morning, I wanted to share with you how I salvage drooping roses in a bouquet.

Can you see the angle of the stem just below the bud on this rose? (It's actually to the upper left of the blossom.) This stem was the first to droop (on Friday), and the first that I repaired. (In a later photo, you can see this rose, repaired with a pearl-headed pin.)

Grocery store roses can be a real bargain, compared to those from the florist. However, I've had an issue with some grocery store roses. I sometimes get a batch whose buds begin to droop about a day after receiving or buying them. 

This latest batch, bought from a grocery store on Valentine's Day, began to develop a couple of droopers on Friday, despite trimming the ends, keeping them in adequate water, and using the floral preservative. My solution for this batch came from a dozen florist's roses that I received once. Those roses had a short length of wire in each stem below the bud. So, for this past week’s roses that were drooping just below the bud, I thought I would substitute a straight pin for the florist wire in the stems.

a different stem beginning to droop

About a half-inch below the place on the stem where the rose was drooping, I pushed an ordinary straight pin up through the stem (toward the blossom), being careful to keep the pin inside the stem and not poking through the other side. 

if you look closely, you can see the pin head on the right side
 of the stem, an inch below the blossom

Above, I’ve used a dark blue pin. But in the photo below, the large pearl-headed pin is more visible. (This rose had the greatest degree of drooping, by the way, and was the first rose that I salvaged with a pin.)

Below are the roses on Friday, after I’d “fixed” the ones whose buds were flopping at the top of the stem. 

I repaired 5 of the stems between Friday and Saturday.

Here they are this morning (Tuesday). You can see the pearl-headed pin in a rose at the front of the bunch. The rose has maintained the integrity of its appearance, as have the others in the bunch.

And here’s a shot of the dozen from above so that you can see that the repaired rose (the furtherest to the left) is opening similarly to several of the other roses.

Obviously, floral wire would be easier to conceal, as there would be no head protruding from the stem. However, I am fine with the small, dark blue and green heads of the smaller pins, as they are barely noticeable and readily available to me. I'll leave the pins in until I take my bouquet apart, then return them to my sewing supplies.

It's too early to tell if the bouquet will continue to look uniformly good. So far, though, it looks like this little “fix” has salvaged my Valentine's roses.

Making Heart-Shaped Candy Boxes

This is the last of the homemade Valentine's gift items that I'll share with you this week -- a handmade, heart-shaped box for the chocolates that I made. BTW, I made dark chocolate almond clusters to go with the heart-shaped chocolates. Nut clusters are a type of candy that are super simple to make, and I wanted just a little more candy for my family members.

Back to the heart-shaped boxes. These definitely took some patience. But I think that they turned out nicely for a homemade box. I used a cracker box for the fronts and backs of the boxes, a thin sheet of poster board for the sides, glue, white paper, gold spray paint, silk roses/leaves and satin ribbon from the free box of craft supplies that I got last summer, scissors, and box cutter.

After opening up the cracker box to lay it flat, I cut a heart out of white paper, then traced around this heart onto the cracker box sheet. This became my template for the remaining heart tops and bottoms. I traced around the first cardboard heart on the rest of the cracker box, 6 times, then cut out all of the hearts. I also cut 6 hearts from a sheet of plain white paper, trimming them down about 1/4-inch all around. I used the box cutter to cut long strips of the poster board. After cutting the strips, I scored each along the long side about 1/3-inch from one edge. I cut tabs all along the narrow side of the scoring. Using tacky glue, I formed the poster board strip as well as I could into a heart on the underside of the cracker box hearts. I worked in pairs, making the sides slightly larger on one heart, and slightly smaller on the other. Before setting each pair aside to fully dry, I checked to making sure the two pieces would fit together, and adjusted the sides as needed. I separated the pairs, and allowed to dry overnight. I also glued a white paper heart into each cardboard heart to conceal the rough work of the tabs glued to the base.

The next day I spray painted the outsides of each box half with gold spray paint.

Once the paint was dry, I matched each heart pair up again.

Using some of the materials that I received in the box of crafting supplies, I glued leaves, roses, and bows to the lid of each box.

What I liked about this project is that many of my imperfections were concealed in one way or another. The gold spray paint wasn't completely smooth, but the roses and leaves obscured that fact. The poster board sides weren't perfectly shaped, but the overhang on the box, combined with the gold spray paint makes that less noticeable. I am pleased with how they turned out and super pleased that they were virtually free. I'll let them dry completely tonight, then fill them with candy in the morning.