DIY Dried Flower and Succulent Crown

Hi friends!

I never really expected this to be a blog post, but I love how this flower wreath turned out that I couldn't help but share! I made this for my daughter's first communion, but I think it would be lovely for a wedding too.  

I can't believe how big Lu's getting!  I keep just wanting to slow life down a bit...but I guess it doesn't work that way!  This spring has just flown by!  Yesterday was a special day for her...

But let's talk about this flower wreath for a bit.  Do you love it as much as I do?

 It's made of real dried flowers, with a few fake ones added in to give it a bit more color.  Then I added in a few real succulents from my garden. I think they are my favorite part!

This flower crown was inspired by the crown that my mom had made for my own first communion.  Mine was a little bit different, but I remember thinking it was really special.   For my first communion I wore my mom's first communion dress, but that wasn't possible for my tall girl to wear!  But at least we continued the tradition of the flower crown.


 I thought it might be nice to include some pointers about how to make your own wreath, so I've included some comments below.

 First, let's talk about what you'll need.

• Dried flowers (see below for more info)*
• Floral wire (both gold for the main part of the wreath, and a smaller thin green wire for attaching the bits of dried flowers into the crown).
• Floral tape.  This is the green tape you see in the picture above.  I actually found mine at the dollar store.
• A few fake flowers
• succulent clippings
• wire cutters
• a hot glue gun

*Basically I took a ton of flowers from garden (plus some baby's breath which I purchased) and hung them upside down for a few weeks until they were nice and dry.  Some flowers dried really well (baby's breath and lavender especially) while others just crumbled right apart.  Live and learn!
** I made my wreath a week before we needed it.  I left it at room temperature when it was done, and the succulents still looked great when she wore it yesterday.  Phew!

I started by making tiny little bouquets with mixed dried flowers and live succulents.  I wrapped the base in floral tape, and then used the thin wire to attach it to the gold circle of wire that I measure out for Lu's head.  
 Then it just became really tedious.  I added mini bouquet after mini-bouquet, until I went all around the wreath.  I did use a glue gun to cover some of the wire with dried flowers.

 But mostly it was just wrapping and more wrapping...

And that's really about all there is to it.  Just lots and lots of wrapping around the wreath.  At the end I opted to just leave a bit of empty space and then tie on a gold ribbon. 

That's it friends!  I hope this helps if you find yourself needing to make one of these beauties for a wedding or first communion in the near future. 

Have a great week everyone!

XOXO,

Jill