Pettiskirt Bouquet DIY

This creative way to gift a lucky little girl a fun pettiskirt could not be easier. There’s not even any hot glue involved, y’all.

If you’re the mother of a young girl, you’ve probably seen these super fluffy tutus (called pettiskirts) pop up everywhere the last few years. Leyna, my 2.5 year old, has LOVED them since she was a year old. They are still an important part of her funky wardrobe.

I came up with the idea of the Pettiskirt Bouquet when I was putting all of Leyna’s pettiskirts back in her drawer one day.

She has one entire drawer dedicated to nothing but fluffy skirts. It’s a good toddler life.

I grabbed one last pettiskirt by the waist and wrapped my hand tightly around it to cram it in with the rest of them. As I flipped it over, I noticed I unintentionally made something that looked like a flower. 5 seconds later, visions of bouquets of pettiskirts filled my head, and I haven’t been able to get my brain to shut up about them since.

So here’s how you make them. For the “flowers” portion, all you need is:

A pettiskirt
A hair elastic
A wooden dowel (I get these in the cake decorating section of the craft store, they come in a bag of 12)
Some extra ribbon or tulle (this is probably optional)

First, place the pettiskirt in front of you, then wrap your hand around the skirt’s waist as close to the first layer of ruffles as possible. This will cause all the ruffles to bunch together in a ball. The bigger the skirt is (these were size 4-6 years) the fluffier it’s going to be, though it might seem a little floppy if you don’t gather it close enough to the ruffles.

Wrap a hair elastic around where you gathered with your hand. I only wrapped this one once. It was tight enough to hold it without causing any damage.

Gently insert the wooden dowel into the center of the skirt. This will act as your “stem.” Depending on the size of the container you put it in, you might have to cut it down.

Using your tulle or ribbon, wrap around the skirt from the hair elastic to the elastic of the skirt. You can also just use the ribbon that is attached to the skirt, if yours comes with that. And that’s all it takes to turn your pettiskirt into a “flower.” Next up, you get to arrange your bouquet.

I have quite a few flower vases just collecting dust in our laundry room, so I grabbed one and filled it full of Starburst for this birthday bouquet.

Kendall, my oldest son, has grown up surrounded by girls, it seems. Most of his playgroup consisted of girls, and we attend quite a few birthday parties for all of them each year. This is for a friend of his who just turned 5.

And this peppermint bouquet? How cute would this be for your little ballerina after her holiday recital?!

If you don’t have a flower vase sitting around, and don’t want to spend money on something like that, it’s easy to upcycle a milk carton into one.

Just cover it in some paper and jazz it up however you want.

This is also a great option if you don’t have a colorful filler, like wrapped candy (I would really only use wrapped candy in the glass vases because I’m afraid any unwrapped candy could stain the skirt). Just tear up some magazine pages and stuff the carton with them.

Wouldn’t that make an adorable baby shower centerpiece?

There are endless options for this project. You can customize a pettiskirt bouquet to match so many personalities and events. I’m thinking I might make a giant bouquet with several skirts for Leyna’s 3rd birthday. She’s going to need to restock the “fluffy skirt drawer” by then anyway.

Some pettiskirts can be pretty pricey, but my friends at  TheHairbowCompany.com sent me these. They are about $16.50 regular price. Leyna has had several from them for well over a year, and they’ve held up beautifully.

So if you purchase a skirt from TheHairbowCompany.com, and use a vase or container you have on hand, you can easily pull this off for less than $25, and you can put it together in less than 15 minutes.

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