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Good morning (or evening, or whatever time you’re reading this!). Today on the blog I’m sharing something I’ve made at least three times before on the blog, but it’s a craft I never tire of. I made these small floral wreaths for work as crafts that can be done simply at home with little materials. They bring a lovely corner of cheer to the home, which I think we could all do with right now(!), and I think they make a really nice and more interesting alternative to arrangements in vases, particularly as florists are closed, and since they are foraged from the garden and the wild they won’t cost you anything either.

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If you have been reading my blog for a while you will know, I am all about nature and natural history. There is solid theory behind this in biophilic design, plants and nature makes us happy. Working with flowers is a very restful activity, but equally having corners of nature in your home is really balancing. I have forms of nature in every room, and I have two activities planned over the coming weeks which are nature related and I will be sharing here. But wreaths are such a simple task and they produce a lot of bang for their buck. 

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You will need:

A note on selection of foliage and flowers:

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There are so many great flowers around at this time of year, from my garden I picked an assortment of Spring blooms that brought lots of colour with bowles mauve, lavender & euphorbia, offset by the whites of achillea and cow parsley. I have seen white roses look really effective on this style of wreath too if you fancy being, well, fancy! For fragrant foliage I always chose a mix of herbs for my wreaths, Rosemary works particularly well, and a whole wreath of herbs can be both beautiful and fragrant, I once did a wreath entirely of lemon thyme and it gave the room the most gorgeous scent.  For my second wreath I used mimosa branches from the garden, they dry very quickly and loose their bounce after a few days so if you want a wreath that will last longer they may not be your best option, however that wreath took less than 10 minutes to put together so I am happy with the pay off.

Method:

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Cut floristry wire into small pieces and arrange your flowers in sections of 2-3 pieces mixing blooms with foliage or herbs.

Wrap a piece of floristry wire around the bottom of each floral selection to bind.bind.

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Once you have made a couple of bunches up, start placing them around the wreath trying them at different angles before you attach them so that your wreath has asymmetric sprays to stop the design looking too formal.

Place your bottom piece first, it looks well draped just past half the diameter of your circle trailing down.

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Attach the first stem by gently winding a longer piece of floristry wire to the top of the hoop (roughly where you want the first floral segment on your wreath to begin).

Layer your pieces on to the hoop with floristry wire, keep your fluffiest, least structured arrangement for the top piece to help conceal lower layers of wire.

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You could be super organised and really plan your design out or you could go with the flow, layering and adding as you go along which creates a more natural relaxed effect that I really like.

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Place your flower bundles at angles from the wreath where they will best be seen and give an irregular flourish from the base ring, attach with floristry wire, using as little as you can get away with (depending on weight of stems) so that they are easily concealed. 

Wreath Two:

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The second arrangement is much fuller, looser and wild to reflect the foliage used. Here, I placed swathes of mimosa foliage from both sides of the wreath, not quite symmetrically. Once you have your central shape you can start to place your wild flowers on. I love sprays of cow parsley for its frothy delicacy, this is such a weightless flower you may not need to add any floristry wire to attach and simply thread the stem of you bloom through your foliage instead.

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Whenever I finish a wreath I hang it up to look at it from different angles and make sure I’m happy with the composition.

I have used flowers that don’t have the longest cut life span so i will spritz with water regularly but it’s lovely to have these corners of joyful colour and nature in the house even if they don’t last past a week.

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Et voila, two super simple spring wreaths to decorate your home that look stunning and one which smells great too. If you have any leftover herbs from cuttings, pop them in you’re hoover, trust me, your home will smell wonderful!

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