Lavender Wreath DIY

In preparation for our Easter brunch, I tried doing a lavender wreath to use as decoration.

Difficulty (1-5): 3  Time: 45 mins  Cost: $50 (EXPENSIVE!!)

Materials:

• Dry lavender – I used 5 bunches like the one you see below. Each one of them was $9 at the Flowers Market, DTLA! Fresh lavender is even more expensive ($6 a small bunch with 6-8 flowers), so I didn’t try that.
• 12″ wire wreath
• Floral wire – I used 22 gauge, but other thickness would work too.
• Wire cutter
• Pruning scissors

Instructions:

1) Choose a place to start on the metal wreath and do a little knot with your floral wire.

2) Cut the lavender as you go. Eventually, I realized that the shortest you cut the lavender the better. I did not want branches to show, so there was no need to have long branches just using up space. 3″ of the green branches worked best for me. Here is an example:

I started with longer branches, as you can see in the picture below. That was a big mistake. They were hard to cover and my wreath had a weird shape by the end. I had to re-do the beginning of it. There is a photo of it later on this post.  3) Wrap floral wire around the branches to attach the lavender to the wire wreath. 2-3 times is enough.  4) Keep on adding branches on top as you go. TIP: You don’t want the wire wreath to show. The best technique to avoid this is to spread each bunch of lavender from the inside to the outside of the wreath so they cover all the space you need to cover, as you see in the pictures below. A dry lavender wreath is NOT forgiving, and it is difficult to fix this kind of mistakes once they are done. Unlike the Holiday wreath I did a couple of months ago, it is nearly impossible to go back and “add” branches of lavender to hide the wire because lavender breaks, so, make sure you are covering everything you need to as you go. Today’s lesson is to SPREAD THE LAVENDER. 5) The end of the lavender wreath is the most difficult part. Cut your branches short and stick them in there somehow. It is possible! OK. First I will show you my FAILED version. I added Víctor to the mix so the photo doesn’t look totally horrible. Ready? Here it is:

You see how the first branches I did are much longer than the others and they look out of place. Something similar happened to me when I did the Holiday wreath, so I had to go back, took out the floral wire, and did that section over again.

Here is the final result. I was planning to do more wreaths, but after learning how much they cost, I decided against it. At least the one I did will last for a very long time. Cute, isn’t?

Hope you like it!