I love the white fields of cotton around here in the fall and just want to pull over, jump out and pick a bouquet. That would probably be stealing – besides, you can’t really find a way to easily get over to those fields. But, I’ve been wanting a cotton bouquet for a long time.
Every time I see cotton fields, it reminds of my dad. He had some cotton bolls and seeds from when we lived in Arkansas and helped me make a science project with them when I was in 6th grade briefly in Illinois. It was a huge hit because growing cotton is rare in Central Illinois.
So I was excited to see bouquets of cotton stems start showing up in farmhouse decorating. I thought about purchasing a bunch – then I saw where people were making them on Pinterest – so I had to give it a try. Besides, I liked the idea of using natural supplies – tree branches, pine cones for buds and cotton balls.
Pulling up up photos of actual cotton bolls and stems for reference, I found the perfect branches in the backyard and grabbed a few wet pine cones from our never-ending supply out back. A bag of cotton balls and a glue gun were the only other necessary supplies. I already had a gray vase in my living room and a new white pitcher in my bedroom that I wanted to make bouquets for.
How To:
I took the leaves off the branches and trimmed them to a nice size for my vases. In fact, I found it easiest to go ahead and arrange my branches in the vases and then add the cotton and buds. Since my pine cones were damp, it was easy to slide the scales off.
The cotton balls were a little larger and tighter than I wanted, so I tore a little off each one and loosened them up to look less consistent and more natural.
I hot glued the balls to forks in the branches, putting the glue on the branch first, then pressing the ball tightly around. Then I glued 3 or 4 pine cone scales around the bottom of each cotton ball. I turned them upside down, widest part at the bottom and so they curved out like the natural buds do.
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