Remember that new flower series I’ve been hinting at over the last few weeks?
Well, it’s finally here! And I couldn’t be more excited to share it with you. I’ve teamed up with the folks at Flower Muse to bring you something really special – a series of three ‘out of the box’ DIY ideas, using fresh flowers in unique ways for your home. For those that aren’t familiar with Flower Muse already, they are a small company (based in LA) that sells farm direct flowers to consumers online. Yep, the flowers you love (like ranunculus, peonies, garden roses, dahlias, and more) will come straight to your doorstep, with the click of your mouse.
As you can probably imagine, this is especially helpful for someone like me, because now that I’m living back in Jacksonville, it is tough to get ahold of beautiful, harder to find varieties of flowers. When I lived in Seattle, I could walk down the street and grab almost any kind of flower I wanted, based on the season. But now, not so much.
So I’m thrilled to be working with buckets AND buckets of beautiful blooms (seriously, these flowers are stunning) from Flower Muse over the next month, to bring you three noteworthy projects. I’ve shown you how to make easy bouquets and centerpieces, and I bet you can probably make those with your eyes closed at this point, so this series will go beyond the traditional uses for flowers and cover some…well….less traditional uses. These projects are truly a labor of love and I hope you enjoy them as much I do.
So let’s get started with this fresh flower frame mirror DIY. And be sure to catch the remaining two on Wednesday, August 21st and Wednesday, September 4th.
Flower Breakdown:
peonies (in pink and white)
white double tulips (which are so, so pretty)
white spray roses (snowflake variety)
thistle (sirius questa variety, but I love the jackpot variety too)
white/light pink wax flowers (available by request)
Additional Materials:
14 inch round mirror
floral wire
floral tape
scissors
2 inch binder clips (not pictured)
5 quart buckets or something similar (not pictured)
How-To:
Before you get started: Be sure to cut 1/2″ to 1″ off the bottom of each stem, at a diagonal to maximize water intake. Remove leaves/foliage before placing them in buckets filled with 3″ – 4″ of room temp water. If possible, keep flowers in a cool area away from direct sunlight until you are ready to use them. More flower care and handling instructions here.
And don’t be afraid to enlist the help of a friend for this one. The more hands on deck for this one, the better!
1. Start by creating a large circle from heavy duty floral wire and then twisting the ends around each other tightly to make sure it is secure. To determine the proper circle size, I placed the wire over the mirror, and then formed a circle that was the same shape, but slightly smaller than my mirror (with all the flowers used, it will end up filling out just fine and you don’t want to make it too large or it will hang strangely when put together).
2. Once the basic frame was created, it’s time to get to work on the flowers themselves. It’s best to work in small groupings and then add them to the floral wire frame as you go for a fuller look. Select one or two larger blooms and one filler flower. Group them together, cut the stem down to 3-4 inches, and tape them together tightly with floral tape.
3. Next, attach the bundle to the floral wire frame with more floral tape, pulling tightly as you go to make sure it is secure.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until the entire frame is covered in flowers that have been secured with floral tape. FYI- If you run out of floral tape, or happen to accidentally buy that kind of floral tape that’s not very sticky, washi tape will work too.
5. Now it’s time to secure the circle frame to the mirror, which can be done a few different ways. The flower frame ended up being a little heavier than expected, so there was a little bit of trial and error at first, but the most effective way to attach the frame, ended up being binder clips. Clip the flower frame, underneath the flowers, to the mirror and push in as far as it will go. Every 4-6 inches, attach another binder clip until the entire frame is completely secured to the mirror. If you have any trouble getting the frame attached to the mirror, remove a few flowers so you can get to the frame a little better, attach the binder clips, reattach any flowers that were removed.
6. Once the frame has been secured, you are ready to hang the mirror and enjoy!
More about Flower Muse:
1) Their customer service is top notch! Every question I had was quickly answered and I was able to work with them to get some flowers that weren’t listed on the website as well (they will work with you to try to find exactly what you are looking for, so don’t be afraid to ask).
2) Because they work directly with farms around the globe, you really can’t get much fresher than these blooms, unless you pick the flowers yourself. AND the farms that they work with adhere to strict social and environmental standards to ensure that every flower that Flower Muse carries is responsibly grown and harvested. Don’t you love that?!
I love the idea of this piece being used over a vanity, as home decor, but when we shot the final images, all I could think about was how perfect this would be as pretty photo prop for a bride as she is getting ready for the big day.
And to create a similar look on a smaller scale, skip the mirror all together and use a similar process to create flower frames for photos and artwork – great for parties and gifts.
Hope you’ll come back the Wednesday after next for the second installment in this flower series. And in the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this DIY in the comments below. Do you see a flower mirror in your future?
Photography by Jeanne Ciasullo for Paper & Stitch // Modeling by Amanda Toman // Concept and styling by Brittni Mehlhoff
This post is brought to you by Flower Muse, a company dedicated to bringing the very best flowers right to your doorstep, direct from flower farms around the world. You can follow Flower Muse on Facebook // Twitter // Pinterest // and Instagram. All opinions and ideas are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that make this blog possible.