Litha 1998 Newsletter Making Wreaths

Wreaths are an item that can be made for most of the holidays and festivals. Wreaths can be used as decoration on the front of your house, or within your celebratory space. Some wreaths can be made as symbols for the year, or for special occasions that are transitory.

Step 1: Have a reasonably clear idea of what you would like the final version to look like.

Step 2: Collect all the materials you will use to make and decorate your wreath. These materials include: pliers, scissors, wire or florists tape, material to make the supporting structure out of, and the decorations for your wreath. For example, pods, vines, leaves, pictures, dried flowers, fresh flowers, herbs, dried sticks, rocks, crystals, recycleables, paper etc.

Step 3: Make the supporting structure for the decorative parts to hang on. This is basically a simple circle, slightly smaller than the size you would like the final version of the wreath to be. You can make the circle out of wire, sticks, Styrofoam, cardboard etc. Any material that will be sturdy enough to support the decorations. It is a good chance to recycle some materials around your home, and is therefore something the kids can get involved in, and actually see some recycling in progress!

Step 4: Wrap, tie, glue etc. your decorations on the final structure. If using material like vines, slowly twist the vines around the circle until you are happy with the design. If using an other material, try to intuitively feel the direction the design is taking you, or if you have a set design, just keep adding material until it is finished.

Step 5: If the wreath is one you want to preserve for a while, spray with glue or lacquer to give it a solid finish.

Step 6: Tie a piece of wire, string or fishing line to the top of the wreath and hang it in the desired location.

Drying Flowers

Air Drying
Remove at least the lower leaves from flower stems; they generally do not dry well and may lose their shape. The majority of upright-growing flowers dry best upside down. Make small bunches of a few stems each for good air circulation and stagger the blooms so they do not hit each other. Secure the stems in bunches with rubber bands, then use string to hang them from nails or hooks.

Standing In A Dry Container
Ornamental grasses, cattails and bare branches do best simply standing upright in a dry vase, which invites them to bend slowly in graceful curves. Thinner stemmed grasses should be dried in bunches so the stems in the centre stay straight while the outside ones curve downward.

Lying Flat
The leaves of some trees and shrubs like oak cuttings should be laid flat in a shallow box lined with sheets of blotting paper. Do not let the leaves overlap one another, and turn them every couple of days so they will dry evenly. The leaves will crinkle some but retain good colour. Large individual leaves can also be dried this way.

Suspended In Mesh
Soft flat-topped flower heads, such as Queen Anne's Lace dry best if their stems are stuck through the holes in a sheet of chicken wire. The wire can be supported between two chairs.

Standing In Water
Heather, gypsophilia, bells-of-Ireland, hydrangea, delphinium and some other stiff-stemmed plants can best retain their shape if placed standing in about 2 inches of water. The water keeps them from wilting before they start to dry; then they dry slowly as the water evaporates. You could add some dye to the water and the plants will absorb the dye at the same time it absorbs the water. An advantage of air drying is that many flowers can be wired before drying, especially the ones that have more delicate stems.