Crafty: Crown your guest of honor with a ring of blooms

Supplies

floral wire (22 gauge)
heavy wire
floral tape
assorted flowers and greenery (I used a variety of blooms in differing textures and sizes and selected one statement flower to be the focus. Alternatively, you could fill the whole crown with big, bold blooms for a very dramatic look.)
sharp scissors
small vase with water

While summer is relaxing in many ways, it can also bring about a busy (but fun!) social calendar: There are weddings, showers and backyard picnics to attend. I don’t know about you, but I always enjoy meeting at a friend’s house for a farmers’ market dinner or dancing a summer night away at a wedding someone else has planned. When it’s my turn to host, however, it can sometimes be panic-inducing, so I’m taking the next few Crafty columns to tackle summer party preparation and planning.

For June, I’ve decided to make floral crowns. This is the perfect project for the guest of honor at any party you’re hosting this summer. Just about everyone loves flowers, so if you feel like going crazy, I’d wager a bet that your other guests wouldn’t mind a crown of their own.

Ideally, wait to assemble the crown until just before your party or event as you want the flowers to be as fresh as possible. If you need to make it ahead, store in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. You can plan ahead by making the wire crown base and thinking about how you’d like the crown to look — it’s good to think about what flowers you will use instead of stumbling in blindly.

Tape time! — Starting where you tucked the ends in, begin to wrap floral tape over the bare wire, overlapping as you go.

Step One

Snip a length of heavy wire that measures at just over twice the circumference of your head. Wrap the wire twice so it makes a circle that will sit on top of your head. Tuck sharp ends in.

Starting where you tucked the ends in, begin to wrap floral tape over the bare wire, overlapping as you go. Continue until you’ve covered the entire crown and no wire is visible. In addition to covering up the wire, the tape also adds the tiniest bit of stability as it unifies the two lengths of wire into one.

Step Two

Snip single flowers down to smaller stems. You can leave stalks of flowers (like Snapdragons or Bells of Ireland) in one piece and use them as your starting layer. Flowers with multiple blooms coming from a single stem can be snipped apart and used as filler. Place all stems in a water-filled vase.

Once your base layer is established, you can weave in filler stems of smaller flowers and leaves.

Step Three

Start to add flowers. I used my longest, tallest stalks to create a nice base layer. Using floral wire, secure the stem to the crown. Continue wrapping the stem around the crown, attaching it with floral tape or wire in multiple places; this will give the stem a good solid hold.

Once your base layer is established, you can weave in filler stems of smaller flowers and leaves. You can make little bundles of mixed flowers and wrap the ends in floral tape to hold them together. Keep a tail of tape about 3 inches long to use when connecting little bundles to the crown. Working in one direction around the crown, attach bundles. Try to overlap your bundles so you can hide your tape. For extra hold, use floral wire in addition to the tape.

If you attach the flower bundles so they go in one direction, you should be able to hide the crown’s framework. Make slight adjustments to hide any visible floral tape or wire behind blooms, and if stems are popping out, snip ends or weave them in.