How to make a kick-ass floral head wreath

Guest post by Sara (aka iLiveinmyLab)

OBT member “iLiveinmyLab” posted this great step-by-step on one of her wedding planning updates.

This is for those brides who want to know how to make one of the kick ass floral head wreaths that they sell at the Renaissance fairs without paying lots of money. I used to make these all the time but this shall be my first in about ten years. They can be customized in many different ways to be made in a larger style or a smaller style. They'd be great for flower girls (and if your flower girl has a favorite doll that wants to walk down the aisle too, you can make it using small rosebuds instead). For this one I'm going to start off with an easier variation of the floral head wreath.

Here is the list of supplies you need:

  • Floral Cloth Wire – I got 18 gauge. You want a thicker wire so that it will be strong enough to hold the flowers and not get too bendy, this is the base of your wreath.
  • Floral Stem Wrap Tape – Get it in a matching color of the wire, that way this doesn't look funky. I buy green and you can buy it in packs of three.
  • Wire Cutters – You need these to cut the silk stems of the flowers.
  • Silk flowers – When choosing silk flowers it's really easy to get really expensive quickly. What I've picked out today is what I'd call a “moderate” in the spending range. The most expensive flour stem set I bought was $2.49. When choosing flowers you want what you'd call “substantial” pieces like a roses, moderate fillers, or small fillers.

This is what I would call a “substantial” flower, it's going to be the focal point of each bundle that you will create (this will make sense in a minute I promise)…

photo286

When looking for a “substantial,” or focal flower, I try and buy stems with multiple roses on them. What you want is at least one larger rose, one or two medium roses, and a smaller rose bud. Get at least two stems of these. The ones I got were originally $4.99 a stem, but I got them at half-off (oh thats another thing never pay full price).

Next, for your types of fillers — these can be a bit tricky. You want to have some sort of smaller flower or greenery that has at least one inch of stem that you can cut off. See this…

photo2881

photo2871

You can get greenery filler or flower filler, it depends on your taste and theme. I went with green because I thought it looked pretty with the blue flowers and there were lots of the sprigs on a stem so I can cannibalize it into lots of different bundles. I bought two of these stems but only used one, it's usually safer to buy a little extra in case you accidentally destroy something.

So onwards to flower adventures…

Step one: Making the wire base.

Take two pieces of the floral wire and tape them together like this…

photo291

Here are the two pieces. Then where they will connect, slowly and tightly start wrapping the floral tape around the wire…
photo292photo293

Okay, so next you take the long wire and wrap it around your head at the spot you would would like it to sit, and then wrap the ends of the wires around each other like this…

photo294

Step 2: Creating your flower bundles.
So as you can see above, the head wreath is round. What I do with my head wreaths is start designing at the back and work towards the front. What you want to do is create small “bundles” of flowers like this…

photo295

How the heck did I make that??? Well I took one large rose, one stem of the giant fluffy thing and one of the leaves from the rose stem and taped them together. Make another one with the same size flower and exact same size stem, except put the rose on the opposite side. Like this…

photo297

Oh, and here's what the back of each bundle will look like…
photo298

Step 3: Attaching Bundles to Floral Wire.
So now that you have two alternating bundles. Attach them to the head wreath wire about 1/4-1/2 an inch (1-3 cm) before the wire is turned up for your head size. This gives you a little extra room if you want to readjust. Tape each bundle to the opposite side with the focal flower being on the outside (that way you can see it easier!) Like this…

photo299
and
photo301

Once both of these are attached it's on to Step 4…

Step 4: Make the next pair of flower bundles.
So, for this you can either make this match what you put on already or make it slightly smaller. I prefer to do them getting gradually smaller as it gets closer to the front of the face because I think it looks a bit prettier. So, make two more flower bundles slightly smaller. Like this…
photo303

Step 5: The sucky part
Now is the hardest part of this project — adding bundles to make it look like the stems aren't there. When you taped the first bundle on there should have been some space under where the flowers were of free wire. What you want to do is slide the stem of the bundle and tightly wrap the bundle onto the wire. This works well with small fingers and takes quite a bit of practice usually, but this is about what it should like like underneath when you're done.

photo305

Step 6: Repeat!
Continue on with adding bundles and taping them on. This is what the underside should look like after the initial phase of putting them on…

photo306

Step 7: Final taping
Okay, this is a trick I picked up after I first learned how to make these. Once you finish Step 5 you could just be done, but you run the risk of things sliding and going wrong (and they will, I promise). So what I started doing was taking a LONG piece of floral tape and then wrapping the single piece along each side of the wreath. This will give it a heck of a lot more stability and it will look much cleaner underneath.

photo307

 

Final Product:

photo308
photo309
photo310
photo314

After the final taping, take it for a “trial run” and wear it for a little bit. If any flowers pop off their plastic stems you can always hot glue them back on. Also, as Ms. LindyHopper suggested you can wire the flower heads on as well.

For those of you who survived this post you should get a cookie. Feel free to ask any questions, if I get some more free time I'll try and make another in a different style. And for those wondering, yes I am wearing my Star Trek T-shirt.

Meet our fave wedding vendors

Comments on How to make a kick-ass floral head wreath

  1. Wow! Thanks for all the details – all the visual learners of the site just fell for your post (yep, me totally included) 😉

    This turned out really pretty. And a lot classier/cleaner than a lot of hair wreaths I've seen around lately. Awesome!

  2. I totally love how you are making the floral wreath and multitasking on the phone at the same time. 🙂

  3. Awww. A shout out on a featured blog. Be still my beating heart! I will admit that this is a lot less labor intensive as my way and equally spectacular! 🙂

  4. You just made my day! I am making my dress for my beach wedding. I am stressing about the flowers! I have always wanted a floral wreath, but do not trust a florist to do what I want. On my way to the craft store tomorrow! Thank You!

  5. You can add long ribbons in the back, different colors/textures for an added special touch.

  6. Wow, I’d pay you to make something like this for me…I’m getting married on Oct. 15 , non traditional wedding, i’m waring a vintage sage green dress and was looking for something simple. no veil. Do you make these for the public?

  7. Will do it with real flowers. Did you follow any pattern so to speak when putting the flowers? Or are most of it more generic?

    • It works with dried flowers, however they are EXTREMELY difficult to work with as they are brittle and break easily. I’ve never tried it with live you’d have to battle wilting and so I’ve never bothered to try and even attempt it.

      I wouldn’t really call it generic either. Each wreath takes on its own pattern and personality In my opinion at least. It really depends on the florals that you pick out. You can go with clusters of larger flowers or smaller flowers, intermixed colors and textures. I’ve also made some that are more similar to “rose bushes” with larger pieces intermixed to look like a more even distribution throughout. The one thing I am REALLY picky about is making sure that each side is the “same” so to speak and that I’ve got matching pairs on both side. That’s just me though you can honestly do whatever you want since it is your own wreath.

  8. Thank you so VERY much for posting this! We are having a Medieval themed wedding in September, all DYI, and this came out beautifully, and saved me lots of money. I’m making them for my bridesmaids as well. 🙂

    • Yay!!! I’m glad it worked out great for you! Do post photos of your wedding in the Flickr group after the wedding, I’d love to see them in action!

  9. Awesome on the star trek shirt!! Live long and prosper!! Thank you for the info on wreath.

Comments are closed.