SUPPLIES & TOOLS:
DIRECTIONS:
JOANN Hacks:
- Pliers
- Floral wire, 22 gauge
- Wire cutters
- Floral tape
- Hot glue gun/glue sticks
- Elmer’s Glue-All
- Metal hoops, one 10", one 12"
- Oriental Craft, large triple chain hanger, two
- Oriental Craft floral picks:
- Hanging Grass Bush Green, two
- Long Hanging Fern Bush Green, two
- Hanging Bush Dusty Green, one
DIRECTIONS:
- Use the pliers to remove two of the three chains from the hanging hook. Slightly close the hook that will attach to the hoop. Wrap the hook around the hoop and slowly crimp the hook closed.
- Cut off the longest stem of the three in each of the Hanging Grass Bush picks. Twist a 10" length of wire between the lowest section of grass on the double stem pick. Spiral the wire around the stem and the wire hoop to secure the grass in place. Avoid spiraling wire around any of the grasses. Twist tie another 10" length of wire around the stem of the longer stem. Add this stem about half way under the first set of grass picks. Only wire on the grasses enough to secure the ends. Floral tape will be added to secure all the sections later.
- Place the chain in the desired location in correlation to the attached grass.
- Cut off the longest section of Hanging Fern leaves. Lay this section under the end of the grass that has been partially secured to the hoop. Spiral wire the end of the ferns to the hoop.
- Take the section that now has the thick stem and bend the stem to the contour of the hoop. Place the stem through the hook of the chain. Wire around the stem to secure to the hoop.
- Take short lengths of wire and secure the grass stems and ferns to the hoop every three or four inches. Twist and curve the ferns to create an irregular, random growth shape. Twist the wire between the leaves of the fern one or two times to secure the fern, then bury the end of the wire between the stems.
- Cut off any fern leaves that cannot be attached to the hoop without appearing to be crowding the other leaves. These leaves may be secured to the back of the hoop, after step 8, if both sides of the wreath will be visible.
- Finish attaching the grass to the hoop using floral tape from the back. Spiral around the center stems of the grass and the hoop. Add a few drops of the Elmer’s Glue-All to the end of the floral tape.
- Flip the wreath over. Add any of the cut off ferns to cover the hoop. Tuck the stems of the ferns under other secured picks and add a drop of hot glue or small wraps of wire to secure.
- Cut the Hanging Bush Dusty Green into two stems. Lay one stem onto the large hoop, over the grass. Weave the stem through the existing picks on the hoop and wire to the hoop where necessary to keep it in place.
- Use small spots of hot glue to pull in any sections of grass that hang out too far from the hoop. Hot glue any sections of ferns that may help hide any noticeable wire or to cut down on plant sections flaring out too far from hoop.
JOANN Hacks:
- All the greens in this project should point the same direction.
- Lift the hoop off the work surface often to check how the greens will drape once the hoop is vertical.