Dove Dipping

Hey folks.

I've been surfing the web like crazy this week and came up with some great finds (some of which I've purchased, some of which I might in the future) for the Boutonnieres. These little finds are all inspired by my boutonniere inspiration picture:

First, I found some light grey millinery leaves on ebay that I hope to purchase this week. There is also a bunch of black I could go with instead, or maybe one of each? We'll see. I also found a bunch of great ribbons at Carmelos on Etsy. I love the Black and white striped ribbon, but I'm waffling on possibly using color (blue or green) instead. Maybe when the leaves come in, that will cinch the decision. My favorite find that I WILL be buying for the boutonnieres is a set of silhouette buttons in black and white made by Robin. There are four sets with six buttons each, two sets of men, two sets of women. She doesn't have the men up yet, but you can see one of female sets here. Aren't they great? Ideally, the men would wear the man buttons, and the ladies the girly ones. Or maybe the men could go to Tay's groomsmen and family, and the girls could go to my maids and family? I think a funky button would be a great addition to the folksy, handmade (flower free) boutonnieres.

Lastly, I bought some white dove punchies from The Candy Shoppe on Etsy. These little (tiny) dove cutouts are the exact ones from the inspiration picture. The description of the boutonniere above said they were "wax-dipped" so I purchased some beeswax, some wax dye, and stems to dip them.

I cut the white wire stems to an appropriate length, hopefully long enough to fix nicely into the boutonnieres. I then laid the doves down and glued the stems to them. I thought about sandwiching the stems between two dove punchies, but found it unnecessary as the wax hides the glue anyway.

I melted the wax and tested the dipping first without adding the dye. I discovered a hot plate would be nice to keep the wax melted. Even with the glass sitting in hot water (above) I still had to re-melt the wax every ten minutes.

I might experiment with using a brush instead as dipping seems to make the dove too thick. In the inspiration picture, the wax coating is thin, but well distributed, making me think its not dipped, but painted on. I'll try that and see how it goes. I think I'd like the birds to be blue, a nice splash of color against the grey flocked leaves, but I'll have to add more dye next time to try and match the blue to the sky blue in the wedding theme colors. Here's a look at the dipping test subjects:

It's a fun project, dipping paper. You kids should try it sometime for fun!