By L. K. on Jun 26, 2014 at 5:00 am in
We’re honored to welcome floral stylist Kiana Underwood back to the blog. The owner of Tulipina, a boutique Bay Area floral design studio, Kiana is known for her bright, imaginative arrangements and her creative use of uncommon vessels. When she’s not designing for events or hosting hands-on floral workshops, she’s busy dreaming up beautiful projects for her DIY-focused floral blog. Earlier this year, she shared a step-by-step tutorial for creating a soft, romantic centerpiece. Today, she’s showing Swooned readers how to make a floral crown and a garland featuring nuanced shades of pink and peach. The looks are lush yet airy. Though appearances might suggest otherwise, creating these lovelies is surprisingly doable, even for the florally challenged!
DIY
Despite common belief, making floral crowns and garlands is not very difficult; however, it can be a tricky task if you do not choose the right florals and greens. For this DIY, I opted to work with beautiful but relatively hardy and flexible flowers and greens.
Supplies Needed
♦ Floral shears
♦ Wire
Flowers Used
♦ Peonies
♦ Cilantro blooms
♦ Garden roses
♦ Ranunculi
♦ Goanna claw
For the crown, you will need cilantro blooms, ranunculi, and garden roses.
TO MAKE THE FLORAL CROWN
Begin by making a base crown. I decided to use the cilantro, since I like its lacy blooms and it was flexible enough to bend. Wire the end of one stem to the top of another until you have created a long enough string of stems to form a circle. Then connect at each end. This is the base of your crown.
Start to add the roses and ranunculi, securing them onto the crown using floral wire. Take care to add them in a tasteful way so that you can hide the stems and the wire as much as possible among the flowers and foliage.That’s it—a lovely, soft, and feminine floral crown!
TO MAKE THE FLORAL GARLAND
For the garland, you will need goanna claw, peonies, ranunculi, garden roses, and cilantro blooms.
For the base of the garland, I used goanna claw, a rather unique plant I found at the local flower mart. It is hardy and flexible and its foliage is quite unusual. However, you can use almost any type of hardy green foliage for a garland. One of my favorites is eucalyptus.
Begin by wiring the four to five stems in a bunch to each other so that the fullest part of each length covers the stem of the next length. Continue in this manner until you have reached the desired overall length. Ensure that your wire is securely fastened so that the garland does not fall apart if you pick it up or hang it.
Once you have made a secure base, you can begin to add the flowers by wiring them to the base. I like a full floral look for my garlands, so I wanted to cover the base with a lot of flowers. It takes quite some time to add each stem and wire it, but the end result is worth the hard work!
To ooh and ahh over her daily floral stylings, keep up with Kiana on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. For more DIY floral projects, visit Kiana’s blog.
