Brooch Bouquet- Part 1-- Where to buy your brooches

When I first saw brooch bouquets, I wasn't 100% keen on the idea. I thought they were neat, pretty, but not for me. But, the more and more I saw them, the more and more I started to fall in love with them. And of course, with my love for sparkle, I loved the FULL brooch bouquets. So, I started doing some research to see approximately how much I would have to spend to make my own. In the end, it cost me about $150 for all of my supplies. A bit on the expensive side, yes. But, I have an amazing bouquet that I will not only have for our amazing wedding, but for the rest of my life.
I want to share my adventures with making my bouquet with whoever will read it. I did my own research and looked at a couple of bouquet tutorials, and then just went for it. I think what scared me the most was how some girls talked about how their fingers hurt because of the wiring, or how they had to make and take apart their bouquet three separate times before they had their layout how they wanted it.
Let me tell you- my fingers never hurt. I only put my brooches on ONCE and LOVE LOVE LOVE the way that it looked the first time around. I think it took me approximately 4 hours to complete the entire thing, wiring and all. That was over a matter of days, but doing it little by little was far better than doing it all at once.

So, here we go! My directions for how I made my brooch bouquet.

First thing is first-- I bought approximately 150 brooches, buttons and small pins. I used several sellers on eBay and Etsy. I'm listing them now that way you guys can have a look at who I used, and have confidence that they are great sellers that have great products!

Keep in mind- I set a "maximum" for myself of no more than $4 per brooch. When I found lots and such, I made sure it was worth the money to buy all that was available, and to make sure that I would use them.

www.fabulousbrooch.com

This site has A LOT of brooches. Quick shipping and good items

http://stores.ebay.com/Beauty-Story-Flagship?_trksid=p4340.l2563

**I liked this seller because they had hair pins and stuff that I used to add pops of color. They are international, so it takes a while to ship, BUT it's paying for the first item and the rest  of the items ship free :-)**

http://stores.ebay.com/yallstock

**This sellers has A LOT of pretty brooches for a great price.  They are also international, and the one downfall I saw was that they shipped each item separately. I seriously ordered 16 brooches from them and they came individually packaged. Haha! Really pretty and sparkly though**

http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheButtonSmith?ref=af_you_favitem

This is from Etsy. This seller sells buttons. I liked them because they were great fillers for the bouquet in between the bigger brooches.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/simplysassysource?ref=af_you_favshop

Another Etsy shop. They sell smaller rhinestone brooches and buttons. Again, good fillers.