Morning all :) Sorry about a slightly later than usual blog post this morning but I'm actually taking two day break right now, before heading down to the Designer Vintage Bridal Show for the weekend.
I seem to be receiving an awful lot of requests for DIY features lately, following the lastest DIY posts I've shared with you. Today I'd like to share a fab little 'DIY Flower Garland headpiece' feature with you, sent in by Florist Rebecca Morgan of Blush Floral Design.
Over to you Bex! :)
Love My Dress Wedding Blog - Photography Copyright (c) 2011, Blush Floral Design
Hello Love My Dress-ers! This is a short guide to make a simple floral head dress that looks great and that anyone can do!
Things you need (these can all be sourced cheaply from your local garden centre or florist):
♥ Silver floristry wire
♥ Strong green floristry wire
♥ Stem-Tex floral tape
♥ Sharp pair of household scissors
♥ Bunch of Sweetheart/Spray
♥ Roses
♥ Bunch of Gypsophila
♥ 1 x Hydrangea head
♥ 1 x Bottle of wine! {any colour}
Creating your Frame & Wiring the Flowers...
1) Take two lengths of strong green floristry wire and wrap together at one end so you are left with one long length.
2) Take your Stem-Tex and starting carefully at one end, wrap it around the whole length of the green wire. You should now have a Stem-Tex-ed length of wire which will form the frame of your head dress!
3) Bend each end of the newly Stem-Tex-ed wire in a hook shape. These two hooks will eventually latch together to make your circular head dress. It is a good idea at this stage to take the wire frame we are making and wrap it around your head to measure, as the last thing we want is a Polo-mint sized floral crown, or a rose covered necklace! So make sure it fits ☺ After measuring you can put your frame to the side for now, as we will move on to wiring the flowers.
4) Take a new length of strong green wire and push it firmly into the stem of your rose. Next cut the wire to length - around two inches is recommended.
5) The next part is a little trickier, but shouldn’t pose too much of a problem for the nimble fingered. Here we need to take a length of the silver wire and ‘thread’ it through the base of the rose. You can afford to push quite hard here to make sure it penetrates the flower head – don’t worry these blooms are hardy!
6) Your rose should now look like this:-
7) Twist the silver wire around the stem of the rose to secure it. Do this for each rose head you are going to use – about eight rose heads is a good amount...
8) After the rose heads are finished, we need to trim and wire the hydrangea. To trim - cut the hydrangea florets (like broccoli!) to size, this is essentially just trimming the hydrangea down as we don’t obviously want one huge hydrangea in the mix! Again you will need about eight florets. Next, take a length of silver wire and wrap around the stem as shown. Follow the same process for the gypsophila.
Forming the Headdress...
9) In order to start putting the head dress together we need to go back to our Stem-Tex-ed green wire frame we made at the beginning. Starting at one of our hooked ends, take one of the wired hydrangea florets and one of the wired rose heads and place together as shown in the picture. From here wrap a fresh piece of Stem-Tex around the wired blooms, securing them to our frame.
Repeat this process for all wired blooms until you have covered your frame. Make sure to alternate rose heads and hydrangea florets, while sporadically adding gypsophila to beautify further!
10) Ok, we are almost there and you should currently have what looks like a floral head dress, all that’s left is to place on your head, bend into shape, join the two hooks and admire yourself and your handiwork freely! You can now sit down, pour wine – enjoy! Congratulations you’re finished ☺
How pretty is that?
To find out more about the floristry services provided by Rebecca, please visit the Blush Floral Design.
Will any of you Love My Dress readers be attempting a go at this tutorial?
You can see more 'How To' guides on Love My Dress here.
Much love all,
Annabel xXx
♥
