How to Make a Corsage

Tutorial brought to you by Sarah Hackforth of Fionna Floral Fionna Floral is a premier full service floral design company specializing in weddings and events in Northern and Central Coast California. In this DIY project, Sarah will show you how to make a corsage for a prom or a wedding in a few simple steps. Notes from Sarah: When buying roses, gently squeeze the rose heads between your thumb and forefinger to check for firmness (if they're soft in the center, they've already started to decompose). You can use floral components from your own garden for your corsage, but be sure to test their longevity by leaving a few cut test pieces out at room temperature over night.

• 26 Gauge Wire
• OASIS Floral Adhesive
• Cream White Pearl Wristlet
• Floral Tape
• Ribbon (7/8" or 1" width)
• Scissors
• Flowers and foliagePrepare the ribbon bows in advance. For more information on how to make a bow, see our Floral Bow tutorial.

Loop the wire through the bow to secure in place. Then, wrap the tape around your wire at an angle, almost parallel with the wire until completely covered. You can warm the tape with your fingers to make it tackier.

Select a few more pieces of wire and cut them in half. Trim flowers off of their stems and pierce 26 gauge wire through the calyx (base of flower).

Add accent pieces to your wired flowers and tape them in to place. You will want roughly 3-5 components for a wristlet corsage. Lay out the components how you want them to look. For our wristlet corsage, we used rose heads, lavender, rosemary, chinaberry, stock, and geranium leaves.

Place your first component flush against metal piece of wristlet and tape the component on to secure in place.

Tape the remaining components together.

Then, tape those components to the metal and fold the metal tabs inward.

Use a pen to curl wire up and under flowers.

To fill out empty spaces, glue in fillers.

Apply a liberal amount of glue to flowers and let rest for 30 seconds or more. Press fillers down and hold firmly to secure.

Put the corsage on your wrist to see if there are more empty spaces. Your goal is to have a full, yet lightweight finished product. When you're happy with the corsage you've created, spray it with Crowning Glory Flower Spray to preserve flowers.