Dried Strawflower Wreath

 

I’ve been wanting to make a new summer wreath for our “dining room” pallet wall decor, so when my sweet friend Alena surprised me with these beautiful straw flowers from the farmers market I was so excited to try it out!!

The flowers were so gorgeous fresh, and we enjoyed them for a whole week in that state! They probably could’ve gone longer but I wanted to dry them out before they got too tired. Here are the steps I followed to make this awesome wreath – try it out and let me know how it goes!!

Materials

• Straw flowers – 1 bunch which you can usually find at the farmers market in spring or summer
• Leaves of your choosing – I picked Eucalyptus since they keep a lot of their green when they dry out, and we have lots nearby! You’ll need at least two big handfuls, and you’ll want to keep them in branch form as shown below.
• Floral hoop
• Floral wire

How to

• You’ll want to dry your flowers first – before collecting leaves or anything else! Strip off the leaves so they are just flowers on stems, tie a few together and hang upside down somewhere in your house to dry out for at least a week, probably closer to two.
• Once your flowers are dried, it’s time to collect your greenery and get rolling! Here’s what my greenery sections looked like when they were freshly picked – notice that each branch has a couple of off shoots and a good length of stem. This will help you when you start wrapping it onto the hoop.

• Find a good spot to work where you can lay out all of your fresh greenery and dried flowers as you go. I actually hung my hoop on Bryan’s bike rack so I could access both the front and back as I worked. I’d highly recommend something like that if possible so you don’t have to disturb the leaves by picking up and setting down the wreath every time you wrap a new wire, but either way it should work out fine!
• Start with your leaves, laying the middle stem along the hoop and securing it in place with a strand of floral wire, wrapping around and around to form a tight spiral. Make sure you capture the stems of each leaf as you go, so that they lay in the right direction and cover more of the hoop. Overlap more and more bunches of leaves until the hoop is totally hidden and you have your desired level of bushiness. If you want your wreath a little more whimsical (read: messy) like mine, leave a leaf or offshoot unsecured here and there to add texture.

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You can see on the left that almost none of the hoop is covered when you don’t secure the leaf stems with the wire. The photo on the right shows the leaf stems secured – that’s what you want! You can still see the hoop but it will quickly disappear when you add a few more bunches of leaves.

• Once you are happy with the shape and density of your greenery around the entire wreath, it’s time to add flowers! This is where your own style and creativity really come into play, since you get to decide how to space the flowers, what colors to put together, and how to balance the wreath as a whole. Wherever you want each flower, just stick the stem through the leaves and secure it to the hoop with wire from the back. It will take a bit of fiddling to make sure the flower is facing the direction you want it and that the stem and wire are both nicely hidden.
• Lay your finished wreath down on the floor in a safe space where it can hang out for the next week or two. I left mine in the garage since it’s dark in there, with the hope that the eucalyptus would dry while keeping as much of the green hue as possible. Fiddle with the leaves now while they are pliable, so that they are lying in the direction you want. Then, just let nature do it’s thing as they dry out in formation! Once the leaves are dry and crispy, your wreath is done and ready to hang.