Hello Kitty Carnation Bouquet

Okay, I know this is not a bento, but since I didn't make a bento today this is what I am going to post. I wanted to make these Hello Kitty carnations I saw blogged here by zakka life. Isn't it cute? It would be so nice for MisterMan's teachers on the last day of school, I thought. This is Jessica's example: 

I read through the instructions and thought "pretty easy!" Well, yes, but for one thing. You need WHITE CARNATIONS. If you have been following me on twitter you know that I have been looking for these white carnations a couple days now. I have gone to every florist and flower vendor within a reasonable driving radius and guess what? Nobody has them. In fact, nobody has much of anything these days. I don't know if it has anything to do with the graduations, proms, weddings, etc. that all happen to take place in June but I have a sneaking suspicion it might. Or it might just be my lousy luck.

Well by today I am so sick of calling places and driving around that you'd think I would just give it up. Nope. I am determined to make these! So this means I either have to use white mums (not the massive double ones, which could possibly work, but the wimpy single ones) or colorful carnations. That's right: there are no white carnations but you can have one in any color of the rainbow you desire. I got to choose between red, maroon, near-black, purple, magenta, pink, yellow, green, orange, and bicolor combos of the aforementioned. *sigh* So I chose orange, pink and purple.

If you overlook the color issue, the making of these Hello Kitty flowers was pretty straightforward and successful. I used black buttons for eyes and gold buttons for noses (since I didn't have any yellow). I cut ears and whiskers from cardstock and added ribbon bows.

I neglected to buy floral tape, so I had to use wire to secure things, and even resorted to my trusty glue gun. Not sure if the hot glue will really hold til tomorrow; I think maybe I should have run out to get the floral tape. Another thing I would do differently is make the bows smaller; I know they look humungous and odd here, and while we're talking about the bows I probably could have used colored cardstock ears to match the strange colors I used for their faces. *eta: I colored the ears to match and it looks better :)

All right. So besides all that, I think they came out pretty well! So what happened when MisterMan got home and I asked him if he knew what they were? He said "Bears?" And when I asked TinySprite she said "Monkeys! With tails!" What?! Sweet boy of mine, when I threatened to toss the unrecognizable flower creatures out rather than embarrass myself by gifting them to possibly horrified recipients, he said "No! I'll just tell them it's HELLO KITTY, so they'll know!"

Oh, okay then. ^_^

Try it if you like! But make sure you can find the white carnations.