How to Make a Mini Wreath Decoration
There is barely anything I love more than spending a few hours faffing around with flowers. One of the greatest joys of spring’s arrival for me (and I’m sure for many), is seeing daffodils, tulips and anemones arriving in the shops, and narcissi, snowdrops and crocus slowly appearing through the largely bare and barren soil in my own garden. There’s been a huge resurgence in interest in dried flowers and grasses of late which, joy of joys, means that it’s getting easier to get your hands on some of the less well-known varieties. My favourite haunts are From Victoria in Lewes and Gunns on Sydney Street in Brighton. I also found some beautiful branches of dried mimosa (you’ll see below) from Chez Michele, who have moved from London’s Borough Market to a new pitch just outside the newly opened Vinegar Yard near Bermondsey Street, I used lagurus and cloud and pampas grasses in some of my Christmas table decorations and I still have a big basketful of leftovers. Of course, the beauty of these plants are that they will last forever and can very easily be repurposed.
Recently I’ve been experimenting with making some mini wreaths that can be used for decorating presents or on a place setting for a special dinner. Some of these here were donated to my children’s school for their Mother’s Day sale, along with some larger posies (which I failed to photograph as I was frantically making them up the night before). Of course, the posies will last indefinitely if you stick to dried flowers and grasses but I like to add some fresh flowers for contrast, too. For these I used some skimmia buds, wax flower and and lavender leaves. It’s fairly easy to remove them once they’re past it, and if you wanted to you could untie the whole posy and start again. Also included in these little posies are nigella (love-in-a-mist) seed heads and some briza grass from my own garden.
What you’ll need:
Some lengths of clematis vine
Wire or string (I used string because I can be less neat and it doesn’t matter because I like the look of it)
Scissors
Dried flowers and grasses (try lagurus or phalaris canary grass, some offcuts of pampas grass, dried pepper berries and rodanthe flowers)
How to make them:
Take a length of clematis vine and shape it gently into a circular shape (try soaking it in water for a few hours if it’s too brittle and snaps). I tend to wrap mine round into a double looped circle but you can do as many as you like. Secure the vine into shape with wire or string in two separate parts of the wreath shape (one of which you’ll be covering with the posies.
Take the bushier of your grasses and start to build your posy. I find if you create your shape and form with the “fuller” grasses you can then build it up by slotting in the more twiggy shapes afterwards. I put lavender leaves towards the back so there’s just a hint of greenery poking through. Remember to keep checking the size of your posies against your wreath (this is just down to trial and error and personal preference as to the look you’re going for really).
READ 7 Tips for Creating Ikebana Inspired Flower Arrangements
Attach the posy to your wreath with string and you’re done! They really are very simple. The trickiest bit is manipulating the vine into place and the most time consuming (but enjoyable) part is creating the posies themselves, which can, of course, look lovely on their own!
Love dried flowers? You might like our dried flower growing gift sets. You can find them here.
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