Order shells online or buy them at a crafts store; select small, petal-like versions in a color that goes with your palette, plus a small, budlike whelk shell to use in the center.
Tools and Materials
Shells
7-inch length of floral wire
Floral tape
Hot-glue gun
Hot-glue sticks
Shell Bouquet How-To
1. Wrap a 7-inch length of floral wire with floral tape; form one end of each into a loop or a small spiral. Use a hot-glue gun to attach the loops to the backs of the shells.
2. Assemble the shells into a bouquet, placing the small round shell in the center and arranging the petal-like ones around it, starting with the smallest shells. Use floral tape to secure each stem as you add it, and bend the wire stems to make the shells flare away from the center.
3.Once finished, tie a pretty ribbon around the stems and you've got a beach-ready bouquet.
Resources
For the petals, we used 24 noble pectin singles from Caribbean Imports.
This bouquet was very challenging to make. First, floral wire wrapped in floral tape is too weak to hold the seashells. Instead, I used a thick, wrapped wire I bought at Michael's. Second, there will be a lot of white space so be prepared to glue (both glue gun and super glue) the shells to each other. Finally, this is definitely a two person job. You'll go crazy if you try it on your own. After learning all of these lessons, I now have a beautiful bouquet for my beach wedding. :)