HOW TO: NAIL POLISH ROSES

Thanks to Jackie for reminding me that I haven't done my nail polish rose tutorial! I got this idea from the roses that I had seen made out of pipe cleaners and Hershey kisses. Last Valentine's day I got the great idea that, hey, I can do this with nail polish. It turned out great, and I must say one of the best brain farts I have had :) The best part is these are super simple to do and not very time consuming at all.

THIS IS EVERYTHING YOU NEED:

The items above are shown for making a full bouquet in a vase. If you are just making single roses to give, then obviously you won't need all of the items I have shown.


Fake Roses with leaves. Any kind will do.


Florists Tape (for a 12 roses I used about 2 rolls of tape)


Florists Wire (this is optional and I will explain below)



A package of wooden plant stakes.



STEP ONE:
Cut off several inches of the florists wire. You will use this to wrap around the bottle of nail polish and wooden florist stake. I did this on all of the roses last year, however this year I found that the florists tape held the nail polish bottles just fine. So experiment on what works for you!!

The wooden stakes have a pointed end and a blunt end. You will attach your nail polish bottle UPSIDE down to the blunt end if you are planning on using in an arrangement, thus leaving the sharp end exposed to stick into the foam for arranging in a vase.

If just giving out as singles, attach the nail polish bottle upside down to the sharp end so it can be covered with tape and not exposed to stick anyone.



Again, this step may be skipped if you think the florist tape will hold your bottle to the stake just fine. This is just a reinforcement to help keep it held tight.



STEP TWO:
You need to cut the leaves off of your roses. Cut them off individually, leaving as much stem on them as you can. Have these ready to use when needed.



STEP THREE:
Taping the bottles. Now you are ready to start taping up your bottles. Starting at the top, start twisting and wrapping with your florists tape. Don't be stingy with it!! Make sure you wrap it up nice and tight, going over the same area more than once. I light to wrap all the way past the top / handle of the nail polish bottle for a more seamless look. Florists tape is anything BUT stiff, it is very easy to work with and very forgiving, if you place it where you don't want it, it can easily be pulled up and re-stuck in a new position. I fold it down an around the tops of the bottles and re-wrap to make it look nice.




STEP FOUR
Adding the leaves. Once you are done with wrapping the handle you are ready to move down the rest of the stick and add leaves. I added two leaves to each bottle, you of course could add more or less depending on what you think looks best. Be mindful that there is a top side and a bottom side to the leaves. You want the top side to show, so place the top side down against the stick and bottle of polish, with the stem placed along the stick. (You will see that I did it the wrong way in the pictures below, ooops!) Now just continue to wrap with florist tape, wrapping around the stick and stem of the leaf.




STEP FIVE
After adding a second or third leaf following the directions in step 4, you are now complete. I continue wrapping the tape almost to the bottom of my florist stake. I wrap my stake about a 1/4 of the way from the bottom, so that it is mostly taped, but not all the way, so that I could easily stick them in the foam base that I had.




That's it!! You have now made your very own nail polish rose!


If you want to make a whole bouquet, you will need:
A vase with a wide open neck.
A foam base.
Decorative rocks or moss to hide the foam base.


Place the foam base in the empty vase, stick in your nail polish roses and any fake roses if you want to add to the finished bouquet. Since I already had the roses left from cutting the leaves off I added them to the finished bouquet. Pour in decorative rocks (or place moss, whatever you want to use) to hide the foam base and tada!! A bouquet any woman in her right mind would dismantle, tear and shred upon receiving!!