Late Winter Lavender Wreath

The ice.  just. won't.  go.  away.   Even during a typical winter, I am always hurrying spring along, every day hoping for more and more GREEN!  This winter though?  It just goes ON and on and on and on.  I feel like the Alaskans must feel!   End WINTER END!

When I decided to make a spring wreath with the earliest little sprigs of green I could find, I was sorely disappointed   Aside from crocus, there aren't flowers and anything green is very new growth that is weak and certainly not prepared to be hustled and shoved into a wreath form.  The solution?  Welcome spring by celebrating what has come before!  I used the little bits of leftover, dried plants that were still being cleaned up for this year's garden and made a {lovely smelling} lavender and spring cuttings wreath.

 

First things first, you need supplies!

• Wreath Form - Various Sizes  
• Floral Foam
• Floral Picks
• Floral Clay (optional)
• Garden Clippers (Don't use scissors!  These Consumer Crafts Pruners are only $2.97)
• Fishing Line or other clear, strong thread
• Various Plant Clippings

Start with a small wreath form if this is your first wreath and wet or live foam.  Regular foam will work ok for the lavender since it is already completely dried out, but if you are using any fresh plants, you will want the wet foam.  Cut the foam into pieces and simply place it into the form.

 I then take fishing line, tie it to the metal wreath form and start wrapping.  Make sure each piece of foam has 2-3 passes of the fishing line to hold it secure.  Once you have wrapped fishing line around the whole wreath, tie and hold it upside down to see if there are any loose spots.  Here is the basic "weaving" method I use:

Now full disclosure -- that was a baby belly above, so no judging, k??

I mainly chose dried plants for this wreath, but wanted a bit of spring green in there, so I chose to use some sedum I had growing indoors.  You won't find it outdoors yet, as sedum starts off in little rosettes like this:

If you do have access to some live stems though, they will need a little help with the foam.  I use a floral pick to poke a hole and slide the stem into the foam.  You can also use the pick to secure the stem if you need to, but I simply used fishing line (see below).

 Here is my little cluster of spring green!  I always start with the most intricate part of the wreath and get it set before adding in the wrap pieces and fillers.  This little section serves as the foil or "bow" of the wreath, a relief from the dried florals around it.

Once the sedum "bow" was finished, I hunting around for some long, straight pieces that would wrap around the wreath nicely and some fillers.  The dried lavender clumps were perfect as fillers and I found some branches still hanging onto leaves for the wrappers.  Simply poke the stems into your foam at the same angle all the way around the wreath and then wrap the entire wreath again in fishing line, making sure you weave in and out of the leaves instead of crushing them into the leaf form.

 

ahhhhh...that's a little better...
spring come quickly...I miss you....