A Floral Crown - Fit for a Queen

 

I love how everyone  is getting into the mood to celebrate the Jubilee. Flags are at the ready and bunting has been strung along the shop fronts of all the local businesses.

I've been doing the window displays for Caversham's newest massage therapists Le Masseur Personnel since they opened. This month, they set me a challenge and rather last minute asked me to come up with a floral crown for their Jubilee window. 

"Cool, no probs, of course I can do that" I said. Only thing was, it had to be very lightweight to be able to sit in their existing suspended display box, so oasis was out of the question. I'll figure it out, I thought and went away to play with some wire.  One snipped finger and a few chicken wire scratches later, this is what I came up. 

I used coloured decorative wire to make the outline shape, reel wire to make the fleur de lys, orb and crosses, to which I added beads for jewels. I then attached chicken wire around the base and arranged thistle, carnation spray and gypsophila through this as a floral alternative to the usual Ermine. Don't think Queenie would mind, do you? 

After all, Queens get a free massage this weekend ; ) (everyone else gets 10 %)

Gypsy Wedding

Gypsophila is having a bit of a moment. Images of Baby's Breath have been cropping up all over the net for the last year or so. This hand tied bouquet is really sweet and stunningly simple, but I have to admit this trend has been a real slow burn for me.

Its got a lot to do with the 80's, when fluff and frill and flounce were everywhere, from the ra-ra skirts and frilly blouses to austrian blinds and ruffled bedding.

Flowers followed suit and were frilly and fluffy, and Gypsophila (or Gyp as I have always referred to it rather dismissively) was used to excess (this was the 80's after all) with masses of carnations or sold with a few straggly roses in your local boozer!

Now I'm slowly coming round to the idea.  Used on its own, its almost cottagey, it looks like it could be grown in a typical english country garden, and cottagey is most definitely a little country, and country is definitely a lotta rustic....so.. yeah I'm warming to it. 

Used simply, on its own in vintage tumblers or mix and match glassware its sweet and subtle.

Used en masse in tall vases it floats like lofty clouds of pretty floral fizz. One thing to note though, and this may be the design stickler in me coming out, in tall table arrangements it looks best in opaque vases as the stems can look a bit straggly in clear glass. 

Its light and airy and yes unashamedly fluffy, but somehow very now.   

photos from here, here, here, and here