Bouquets and Broquets and Boozequets....oh my!!!!

Hello There My Little Butterflies!

I know I know, It's been a while but here's the thing.  I've been super busy.

We have this Dirty Santa thing on Wednesday at work at our Christmas Party (which I jumped right into organizing once someone asked me for help.  Just took it off her plate and put it on my own....it's what I do.)

After the fiasco of the crappy hell hole I was working at last year and the entire Dirty Santa Situation there (Seriously, I brought in a bottle of booze, I got a bar of soap that had an undisclosed amount of money in it {SURPRISE it was a GD dollar}), I decided I was going to make a gift basket of sorts. Anyway, I wanted to show you what I was working on.  I've been seeing these things for a while bouncing around Pintrest.  So think of those edible arrangement things, but for guys.  Well Here's the thing, why do only guys get to have fun bouquets?  So I'm not calling it. Broquet.  I'm calling it a Boozequet.

So first, per usual, we gather our supplies.  Now I know it looks like a lot of stuff went into this but really, the whole thing cost me maybe $20 total to make.  So here we go....

Here we see 9 bottles of booze.  Get the sippers or nips as some folks call them at the local liquor store.  Also we have tape, floral foam and gift tissue.

A gift bag (You will definitely need it) a glass stein, a bag of sunflower seeds, a bag of peanuts, a bottle of Champagne jelly beans, a beef stick and (believe it or not...) a bacon lip blam. 

Oh yeah!  Skewers, get the dual sized pack, you need both sizes.  

And now , on to the process.  So first I trimmed away the excess floral foam.  I determined the size I needed by pressing the mouth of the mug firmly into the foam.  This gave me a starting point as to where to start cutting away.  And speaking of cutting, when you are using this type of floral foam (the "wet" kind, you know, the one that holds the water?), you don't really need anything sharp to cut with.  I literally used a plastic butter knife.

I suggest working on a surface, I used a piece of cardboard.  Side note, this type of floral foam gets super fine, which is great fo shaving it in the shape you want but the dust goes everywhere!.  So.....fair warning.

You want the foam to be large enough to support the items you shove into it, but you also want it small enough to go into and out of the glass mug easily.

My next step was to take the yellow tissue paper and fold it into fours so it's one long 4 layer piece.  You only need one sheet of tissue for this.  Then, take a thin white strip of printer paper or whatever and tape it to the top of the yellow piece with a little bit of the white passing the yellow paper.  Now put your foam at the bottom edge and roll the paper around it.  this will give you a yellow and white tube, white paper at the top.

Pirate treasure chest stress ball bitches!

Next, GENTLY (remember I told you this foam is grainy and stuff.) slide the tube (yellow on the bottom with the foam) into your beer stein.  You now have something that give the illusion of beer in your mug.

Pretty neat huh?

Next, I began with the bigger items.  I placed the skewer on the back of the item, wrapped tape around it, and secured it with more tape along the back.

Here are the three tallest items already in the foam.  

TOO CLOSE WITH THE FLASH!!!!!!
You can't see it, but I'm showing you the tape around then the strip up and down to secure the skewer

I placed the tallest item (the beef stick) in the center and in the far back of the foam.  then the smaller items out a bit and on the sides, jelly beans in front of  the beef stick and a little lower, finishing with the smallest non food item  closest to the opposite side of the foam and over lapping the rim a bit.  All the heavier items got a longer skewer.  Mostly for height but also for security.

Adding in the booze!

And now, we do the same with the mini booze bottles.  two on either side of the lip balm at staggered heights.  These got the smaller skewers, they were shorter so they got extra tape.

And now the last 5 booze bottles.  One in the center, then two on either side at staggered heights.  These got longer skewers because I wanted them to have more height.

Someone will be filled with the Christmas Spirit! 

You can find the mug, tissue paper and the beef stick all at the dollar store.  I got the gift bag and the floral foam at Walmart. I got the jelly beans at a Store called Five Below (LOVE THEM). The other snacks and bacon lip balm were found at big lots and I got the booze 10 for $10 at the liquor store.  Total the materials cost me about $19.50 with tax say $21.  It took me about 30 minutes to put together 

And there you have it Butterflies!   Above you find the finished product.  Then I just stuck it into a pretty gift bag, covered the top with red tissue paper and BOOM done.  A fun and unique gift for a friend or coworker that doesn't break the bank.

Merry Christmas Butterflies and Feliz Ano Neuevo!!!!