The Fairy Wreath

How to Make a Fairy Wreath Headpiece
by Gina Marie

Materials Needed

• Floral Wire
• Wire Cutters
• Glue Gun, Glue Sticks
• One Large Spray Silk Ivy Cut Into Individual Sprigs
• Two Sprays of Flowers
• One Spool Wide Ribbon
• One Spool Small Ribbon
• Embellishments

For this wreath we used beads, a one yard length of a beaded wire finding, dried small branches from dead fall, and one large dragonfly finding all purchased at the local craft supply section of a large chain store. Tip: Dried flowers can now be found in a variety of forms, and can be used in place of the branches. You can also use small dried grapevines.

To begin cut three lengths of floral wire three and one half inches larger than the circumference of the head you wish the wreath to fit. Twist the one ends of the wire together.

Repeat on the other end.

Next twist the two ends together tightly to form a circle.

Now you can begin attaching the silk ivy to the circle form. Use florist wire, and wrap the stem of the ivy to the form. Using wire about every three inches, and add new piece of ivy as needed. Making sure to over lap each piece a little to prevent open areas. Tip* Make sure you wrap the wire down tightly. You do not want any loose ends, that will poke the head, or get tangled in hair.

Wrap until you have the form covered in ivy, except for a space three and one half inches ivy free at will become the back of your wreath.
Using your fingers bend this space down into a V shape.

Once you have the ivy wrapped onto the wire frame, and you have the V formed in the ivy free back area wire another piece of ivy down the sides of the V.

Next bridge the gap at the top of this V with another wiring on another piece of ivy. Note* This V is important to the structure of the frame. It no only provides a wonderful drop trail in the back, it also provides extra balance keeping the wreath in placeon your head, without the use of tons of hair pins.

Take the two flowers sprays and wire them one to each side of the wreath. The sides are now defined by the back V. Start the sprays from the center of the wreath (center denotes the area of the wreath that will rest on your forehead )and work one back each side, wrapping the piece to the wire form and ivy branches. Take care not to wrap any leaves into the wire.

Now you can begin the really fun part of embellishing the wreath. On this wreath the beaded wire finding was wrapped around flowers and ivy working center to back on both sides. Lightly secured with two wire wraps on each side.

Next the ribbon was added. For this wreath eight four inch lengths of wide ribbon were cut. The each was folded in half, and secure together with a bit of hot glue. The the folded ribbon were places around the wreath with no glue, to see how they looked. When the placement was pleasing, each ribbon was removed one at a time, hot glue was placed on the folded end, and it was placed back in it's spot, making sure part of the folded end wrapped around the wire frame. When placing these bits of ribbon try to hide the ribbons ends under an ivy leaf or flower.

Next cut eight pieces of thin ribbon, into eight inch lengths. Knot the fold of each as shown in the picture. Now place these at regular intervals between the wide ribbons on the wreath. Glue in place with hot glue when you have the placement to your liking.

Now you can begin placing your dried material on the wreath, Stick in with out gluing at first, so you can decided which placements look pleasing. Once you have each sprig of dried material placed to your liking, remove them one at a time, add the hot glue, and glue them back into the spot your removed them from on the wreath. For this wreath, beads of a complemetray color where hot glued to a few of the branch tips here and there.

Now you can finish your wreath up by adding the embellishments to the back V of the wreath. On this wreath we glued a bow of the wide ribbon. Cut your wide ribbon to a length of one and one half feet, and attached the dragonfly to the center of the bow with hot glue. Next we cut four lengths of the thin ribbon one and one half foot long, each length of thin ribbon was folded in half and knotted as the thin ribbon was knotted above. Glue the thin pieces of ribbon together, and then glue to the back of the dragon fly and wide ribbon, leaving the knotted ends sticking out a bit at the top. Let dry, then using the knotted loops, carefullyy loop them over the center of back V shape, at the small pointed end, and secure with more hot glue.

Now you can go over your wreath and pull off any stands of hot glue that might be on it. After removing any excess glue strings, you wreath is ready for wear. Adding an hair pin or two on each side of the head is advisable on a windy day, if you are wearing the wreath out of doors.

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