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Chocolate Bouquet Making Adventure
In February last year I looked into ordering a chocolate bouquet. I wanted to surprise my sister with one as an additional birthday gift.
I trawled through online stores but couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for, and the price of them seemed excessive just to have a dozen fun-size chocolate bars wrapped in pretty tissue paper when I could have a go at making one myself.
Surely they can’t be too hard to make, I thought. Let’s give this a go.
Turkish Delight Butterfly Birthday Bouquet
And so I began my chocolate bouquet making adventure. I raided my craft supplies and a discount store and got to making the chocolate bouquet I thought my sister would enjoy.
Shopping for supplies to try a new project was exciting, and the thrill of not knowing if it would turn out like what I had envisioned in my head was my fuel.
I worked with fun-size Turkish delight bars because the chocolate wrapper is pretty and my sister loves them. I do too. Are we weird? Apparently we are mythical creatures.
The lady who served me at Woolworths commented on my chocolate purchase: ''Oh someone else who likes Turkish Delight! Did you hear about the guy who complained to Cadbury on Facebook asking them to remove Turkish Delight from the favourites box because nobody likes them?’’
''Yes, I did. How dare he speak for us! What a stupid thing to complain about — chuck them out if you don’t like them! Or better yet, don’t buy a box of Cadbury Favourites if it annoys you that much.’’
She enthusiastically agreed.
The best people in life love Turkish Delight.
I couldn’t be happier with how this bouquet turned out given it was my first attempt and how many I have no idea what I’m doing moments I had to work through. To my surprise, it turned out just as I had envisioned in my head, maybe even better.
My sister loved it and I was elated.
Freddo Frog Thirtieth Peacock Bouquet
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| Welcome to the Freddo Frog Choir! I highly recommend seeing them. Haha. |
For a friend’s thirtieth in October I wanted to make an epic chocolate bouquet that you couldn’t buy anywhere. The combination of Freddo chocolates with a peacock theme is quite a weird one, but that’s where my crazy brain took me so I rolled with it.
This was a challenging bouquet to pull together. It caused so much stress. I needed a posy box for this one so I ordered a bunch from a popular online florist supply store not expecting their shipping and delivery time to be extensive.
To my distress, I didn’t receive my order in time. With only a few days to whip a bouquet together, I rang all the florists in my area to see if I could pinch a spare one. Despite me calling several times not one company answered their phone. Too bad if I wanted to order flowers!
This just isn’t coming together. It’s not happening.
I had resigned myself to finding another gift when I came across a perfectly sized black gift box in a discount store while shopping with a friend for the birthday dinner party.
Yes! Yes! Yes! This will work.
I was ecstatically jumping up and down in the aisle. Had anyone seen me they would have thought I was a nutter. My elation was short lived though. An intense pain hit me hard in my legs, bum and hips as my uterosacral ligament was still healing from having Endometriosis cut off it.
I stifled a scream and dosed up on Tramadol when I got home.
The pain killer only took the edge off the pain and triggered a migraine which set off nausea. It was the worst time to be working on a craft project. As I was pressed for time I persevered through the pain and crafted my heart out with the blinds half down.
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| I used the Poised Peacock rubber stamps and cutting dies from Stampendous. They are absolutely stunning. |
I honestly don’t know how I pulled this off under these circumstances, but I did and I’m damn proud of myself. It was a hard slog; as much as I wanted to make something gorgeous for my friend, I wanted to curl up in a ball and die. This is what you rarely hear or see about a craft project — you see the beautiful end result, not the struggle and agony I went through to get there.
But it was all worth it to see my friend’s face light up and hear ''It’s amazing. I thought you bought it from a shop!’’
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| My friend and I decorated the table to match because we are fabulously coordinated. |
Cadbury Thirtieth Balloon Bouquet
After a few weeks spent recovering I then forged on and made another thirtieth bouquet for a friend. This one was more relaxing to work on and I had a lot of fun with it.
I ended up going with a different colour scheme and making it girlier than I had planned, but I’m more than okay with it. My friend was too.
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| I made use of my new Balloon STAX dies from Die-namics with my Cuttlebug. |
It’s so pretty! I would be overjoyed to receive something like this. I love these colours; they are my absolute favourite. Craft is such an adventure I wholeheartedly adore.
Cherry Ripe Birthday Balloon Bouquet
To finish the year, I made my dad a chocolate bouquet for his birthday too.
I loved using my new balloon dies so much for my friend’s bouquet that I also wanted to use them in a bouquet for my dad. I’m obsessed with these dies and I can’t wait to use them in cards, they are so versatile.
As much as I was excited to make my dad his first chocolate bouquet it was a battle to get started. I found it difficult to get motivated amid a fatigue flare-up. It was hard to tear myself away from bed; I kept falling asleep.
It was a miracle I could whip this together at the last minute.
This was the first chocolate bouquet I made in the summer heat and it was quite a challenge. The hot glue struggled to set so the balloons and chocolates kept falling off the skewers. It was pretty frustrating, but I got there in the end.
To match the chocolate wrappers I went with a red and gold colour scheme and used a gorgeous red and white striped ribbon that had been sitting in my stash for many years. I was waiting for the perfect time to use it and this was it.
I thoroughly enjoyed making this for my Cherry Ripe loving dad. It was very special.
Working on these chocolate bouquets got me through a grueling year. Diving into a new craft was a welcomed distraction that fostered fresh hope and brought me a lot of joy. They have become my favourite gift to make and one of my biggest passions that I am slowly working towards turning this hobby into a business.
Chocolate bouquets are a much more delightful and personal way to give someone chocolates. They are quite popular with people paying over $100 for them.
After making these bouquets I feel stupid for criticising the price of them. A lot of time goes into them and some materials and chocolates such as Lindt and Ferrero Rocher aren’t cheap. Taking this into consideration, $80-$120 for a large chocolate bouquet is reasonable.
It’s a competitive market but I feel I’ve got something unique coming from a paper craft background. I need to push through the fear, get myself out there and cash in on this market. My plan is to start slow and sell as I go — so no custom orders (as much as I’d love to do them) until it’s more manageable with my health. I have a few hurdles to jump through first, but the future is exciting.
I can’t wait to see where this adventure takes me next.
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