How to: Make a floral (carnation) garland
This week was a fairly laid back week. Floriography only had one wedding this weekend and it was just a delivery where none of us were needed to set up. Going off my latest blog post about my fourth wedding interning with Floriography, I discussed the importance of a budget at weddings and suggestions on how to best distribute your wedding budget. This bride as mentioned above, had the flowers delivered which significantly took down the cost because there was no set up fee. Want to make it even cheaper? You could also even pick up the floral arrangements so you do not have to pay for travel. That being said, you would need a guest that was not necessarily involved in the wedding that you trust to put up the floral arrangements while you were getting ready. You would also need to have access to a refrigerator to keep all the floral arrangements as fresh as possible and know to water them as much as possible before putting them up. I think it really boils down to a discussion I had in my economics class that people are willing to pay for convenience. The following question to that statement is, do you have the budget for that convenience? Like I said, either way your special day will be magical regardless!
Going back to this week, the bride was having a beautiful, colorful Indian wedding in Santa Fe. The bride ordered 80 ft. of carnation garland split into 20 ft. pieces, each a different color. My project this week was to make all the carnation garland. This was the first time Floriography Flowers had done garland and it was a fairly easy project that turned out looking lovely! Below is a How to: Make a floral (carnation) garland. For this specific How to, I will be using carnations as the flower as that is what the bride ordered, but you can use any flower you please.
Step 1: Get all the supplies
1. Buckets
2. Water
3. Floral food (floralife)
4. Floral cutters
5. Flowers
6. Fish Wire
7. Scissors
8. Crowning glory in a spray bottle
9. Sewing needle
Step 2: Process the flowers
After filling up your bucket(s) with water and floralife, process all the flowers. Refer to my other blog post on How to: Process flowers if you do not know how.
Step 3: Measure & cut the fish wire and tie on the sewing needle
With your flowers processed and drinking water, cut the length of fish wire with scissors that you would like the length of your garland to be. With our garland being 20 ft. we put together our two tables in the workshop that were both 5 ft. in length and taped the start of the fish wire to the end of the table (make sure to leave plenty extra fish wire at the end), then taped it down again at the other end of the table, and then pulled the wire up again to the other end of the table to measure in total 20 ft. I cut the end of the wire, again leaving plenty of extra after I cut, and then tied on the sewing needle by doing a double knot.
Step 4: Cut the flower to where it is just the flower and the receptacle
Grab your bucket of processed flowers and start making piles of them cut with floral cutters to where it is just the flower and the receptacle. Essentially, you want to cut off the stem, but make sure the flower is still intact.
Step 5: *For carnations only* "Massage" the receptacle and inside the flower to get the carnation to open up
If you are using carnations as your flower for your carnation, you will notice that some of the carnations are not as opened and full as the others. This is an easy fix! Take the carnation and start pushing on the receptacle (the green bottom part of the carnation) this will start to open up the carnation. If the carnation is still not fully open, take your finger and delicately push the petals apart in the middle of the flower.
Step 6: Take the needle and stick it through the middle of the flower to come out the end and pull through
Once your pile of flowers is ready, take you needle and start sticking it through the middle of the flower to come out the other end and pull through. It does not need to be perfectly pulled out through, but try and be consistent so your flowers are not in different directions and try to be as close to the start of the stem as possible. Once you have done around 5, take the flowers all in your hand and slid them down towards the end.
Step 7: Continue this process of sticking the needle into the flowers and sliding them down the end of the fish wire until the entire fish wire is filled with flowers
Continue this process of sticking the needle into the flowers and sliding them down the end of the fish wire until the entire fish wire is filled with flowers. Be very delicate when you move the flowers.
Step 8: Tie the end of the garland
Once you have filled your fish wire with flowers, it is time to tie the end of the garland! Tie it to where there is a hole so the garland can be hung if so desired by the client and so that the flowers do not slide off. You can even tie on ribbon in the holes so that is easier to find the ends.
Step 9: Spray on the Crowning glory all over the garland three times
Crowning glory acts as wax to keep the carnations in their spots. You can only use crowning glory on flowers that are no longer in water. If you spray crowning glory on flowers that are in a bucket of water they will die immediately, because you almost freeze them. After the garland has dried, Stick it in a basket in the refrigerator if you are not using it until later to preserve it!
Step 9: Show off your garland!
