The other day I quickly whipped together some fresh floral necklaces. I was sitting in the backseat of a car, as some friends and I headed out for an evening. I posted a couple pictures on instagram and they seemed to be a hit, so I decided to make a real post for the blog.
Summer is here and I’ve been noticing that floral crowns are really popular. When I initially saw this DIY for a floral headband on Natalie Creates I was excited for a moment because, even though it is beautiful 1. I thought it was actually a necklace and 2. I thought it was using fresh flowers.
Wearing fresh flowers just really appeals to me. BUT, I’m not really a headband/crown type person. Plus, they’d be above your eyes and nose, so you can’t really benefit from it yourself. When I think of wearing fresh flowers though, I think of a corsage or brooch, which conjures the image of teenagers at prom, or grandma’s being honored. When I did a quick search for fresh flower necklaces it seemed that it was only mentioned in reference to weddings, or little kids making daisy chains. Why not wear a floral necklace to work, or for a night out on the town?
The other night I was watching the movie The Details on netflix streaming. It’s kinda good, (comparitively speaking to the rest of the streaming movies that I haven’t seen or heard of before that Netflix recommends to me) so yeah, go watch it. Anyway, Laura Linney plays this kookie, neighbor and she goes on this little mini rant and in it she mentions wearing a basil leaf pinned on her lapel to purify the air. We’ve all heard that keeping plants in the home helps to purify the air and it got me thinking that there might really be something more to wearing a necklace of fresh flowers. I always wondered if that “purify the air” thing was really just a myth based on the fact that plants “breathe” carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, while humans breathe oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. But, apparently NASA spearheaded a study in the 80s and found it to be true. Plants actually remove poisonous contaminates from our air, other than just CO2.
Here are some different sites that offer different plants that help purify your air. 15 houseplants for improving indoor air quality, Breathe Easier: 12 Houseplants to Purify Indoor Air, and NASA Study House Plants Clean Air. Some of these plants are ones you can find in inexpensive floral bouquets from the store.
Now, this might all be for nothing because what I’m about to do with these plants and flowers is cut their heads off. We will all agree that flowers are pretty, and they smell great. Whether or not these blossoms continue to purify the air around you after they’ve been cut from the stem is beyond me, but I think you will still continue to enjoy their fragrance and appearance all the same.
It can really be as easy as this:
For $10 or less I went to the grocery store and picked out a bouquet with a wide variety of flowers. Some of the plants mentioned in the above articles include daisies and chrysanthemums, which may or may not purify the air around you while wearing this necklace.
For $2 at Michael’s I bought a little bit of florist wire.
With these 2 items you could probably end up making a dozen necklaces.
Cut off the heads of the flowers where the stem meets the base. Once you have all the blossoms you can organize and decide what flowers you want and in what order you want them on your necklace.
Using a pair of craft scissors cut a length of wire about 3 feet in length. This will allow for extra length to be trimmed away later.
The end of the wire will be stiff enough (like a needle) to feed through the base of the flower.
You can just thread them on, or loop the wire around like pictured above. I looped the wire and was able to play around with the placement a bit more than if the flowers were just threaded on.
You can create extra loops to create rows and give the piece some depth. The wires on the back can be messy, no one will see it.
Once the arrangement is complete you may decide to loop the wire around to make it into a necklace, or maybe you’d like to attach a ribbon to wear around your neck.
I wore my necklace out for an evening and it looked beautiful and smelled great all night long. If you end up making any fresh flower necklaces, I’d love to see your arrangement.
