This weekend my friends and I attended the New Hampshire Renaissance Faire. It was a gorgeous 82 degrees in May, and I needed a crown of flowers for the occasion. With the forecast calling for a such a warm day, my garb needed to be kept simple; no layers of skirts or heavy belts and bags. I desired a decorative headpiece to jazz up my otherwise simple medieval gown. I started with loose fake flower stems from the craft store for a few dollars each after coupons and sales. A crown does not require many flowers, and I bought more than I inevitably needed. Even one bushy stem would have been enough to make two crowns, but I wanted to mix colors.
First I trimmed some branches off of one stem, the one with the pink roses, and folded the length of the wire back on itself and secured it to form a circle. Then taking shorter cuttings, I arranged flowers of different colors in one direction around my circular frame. I used two pairs of pliers to wrap the wired stems around themselves to secure, and added paperclips and bread-ties in a few places for extra strength. The nice thing about fake flowers is you don’t have to use a stem as-is; all the pieces (leaves, flowers, tiny buds), are interchangeable and can be pulled off and swapped out for one another.
To finish the crown and hide any imperfections, I wrapped the crown with natural twine. This hid the paperclips and helped control the flowers’ sprawl. Once I was happy with the wrappings, the crown was done! Super easy and easy to wear.
