Cottage In The Sun: Homecoming Mum Making Experience

I'm so excited that they are finally finished - Homecoming seems early this year and I was so stressing about getting them done just right! They are for my oldest and her "big sis." These mum are both larger than my first one - about 40" long with 36" streamers and the mum flower is 6" across and 8" across with the backing. I think they are a really nice size without getting in the way too much.

And I have to share - When I was trying my youngest daughter's mum on her she asked - "And why am I wearing this again?" My husband (not a Texas native) thought this was too funny and rolled his eyes when I told her it was because she was a Texas girl and that's what she's supposed to do at Homecoming! I loved the mums I had at Homecoming (back when the flowers were real!) and I hope my girls love these just as much!

I put these together just like the smaller mum - I just added more embellishments.
I made some military braids (I looked at several sets of instructions and practiced quite a bit - I also had to adjust the ribbons more tightly after I finished, but they turned out just as nicely as the ones in the stores and as long as you are careful not to crease the ribbon the adjusting goes quite smoothly.) I also made some diamondback style braids that my daughter really liked. (Again, it just took a bit of practice after looking at instructions.) You can also buy the military braids at a craft shop if you'd like.

Before I got started attaching everything I made up some ribbons with footballs, bells, and megaphones. (I punched out some star shapes from glitter paper and attached them to the megaphones.)

I wasn't quite sure how to finish the ends of the braids, so I stapled and then used hot glue and ribbon to cover the staples.

I glued the ribbon and charm on the front and then wrapped and glued the ribbon that I tied everything with around the back.

I laid the flowers and ribbons out to see what I had and decide what all I was going to use. I used zebra ribbon, school spirit ribbon, 2 different braids, name ribbon, homecoming ribbon, gold star chain, gold cheer chain, curly ribbon with megaphones, bells, footballs, and skinny gold sequin ribbon.

Using 36" lengths, I began the streamer circles by attaching 9 (#9) ribbons (4/5 red and 4/5 black) to the fronts. My daughter felt they needed to be fuller, so I added 7 (#9) more ribbons (3/4 red and 3/4 black) ending up with 16 lengths on each circle. I also added 8 (#3) ribbons (4 red/4 black) to each.

I almost forgot - I found the cutest little lion head pens, ripped the heads off, and glued them to the center of the flowers. They weren't quite big enough all on their own, so I added a little embellishment to teach of them! I used different color accents since the bases are different colors (one is more red, one more black) and so they would each be unique.

I don't have a picture, but I then laid out all of the "fancy" ribbons and chains on top of the streamer base so that the colors and chains were balanced, not exactly symmetrical, but spread out so that one side of the mum didn't have too much red or too much black, etc. You can get an idea of how this looks by checking out my other mum post.
I used the homecoming ribbon for the center, attached the zebra and school spirit ribbons more-or-less evenly on the sides and then also placed a braid and gold chain on either side. I attached the braids, chains, and skinny ribbons on top of the fatter ribbons.
If you look at both mums you can see that one is more black and one is more red, but they are both balanced. I made sure everything was stapled down, glued the flower on top of the streamers (a lot of glue), and glued a plain circle to the very back to cover the staples.

I have tons of photos of the completed ones!