Dried flower wreaths can be created from a wide choice of dried flowers, and preserved fruits. It is pleasing to live in harmony with your environment. Many of us still have an instinctive need to preserve something from the summer’s beauty and abundance. The enormous pleasure we get from harvesting and picking the flowers plays a part in this.

When one of your rooms is full with bunches of dried flowers, and pots of preserved fruit and vegetables adorn the shelves, it is impossible not to feel a sense of pride and satisfaction.

Once you become interested in the fruits of your own environment, either by growing fruits and vegetables, or by collecting a variety of plant material, your attitude to the seasons will change.

Drying what you discover, and growing flowers, leaves and grasses can provide an enormous pleasure and become a great hobby.

When choosing plant material for creating dried flower wreaths, it is important to think about color.

Color selection is possibly the most personal element making dried flower wreaths. A preference for one color or combination of colors will vary with each individual. Some people prefer yellow-orange and others like only blue. As dried flower wreaths age, the color tends to change and the green of the stems and leaves will turn rather cream color.

A mostly pink dried flower wreath that includes a lot of green, loses its green freshness after a half a year, and the combination of drab yellow with pink is not attractive.

Blue and grey are good lasting colors for dried flower wreaths, and will retain their beauty for a long time.

For creating dried flower wreaths formerly, clay or rolls of wire mesh had to be used: but now oasis, a much easier material to work with can be used as a base. The required shape can be cut out of a brick of oasis. You should be able to purchase this at your local craft store.

Dried flower wreaths are always appealing and evoke a somewhat romantic atmosphere wherever they are hung.

Since dried flower wreaths are based on a flat surface, there are no problems with the construction or the proportions of the wreath as a whole. It is best to cover the oasis first with a type of Spanish moss. You may first soak the moss in a little luke-warm water. This makes it more supple and easier to mold. Squeeze it out well and fix it to the oasis with special staples or pieces of wire bent to the shape of a hairpin. You may also use your hot glue gun to make it more secure.

Now you can start inserting the flowers. Make sure they are evenly distributed over the entire surface. Tie very small flowers together in bunches with wire. Larger flowers can simply be inserted into the oasis with their own stems, or on artificial stems. It is best to start with flowers that cover the background of the oasis well, for example spirea or yarrow. Then you may insert your showy dried flowers, such as straw flowers.

The contours of the dried flower wreaths can be softened with spike-shaped flowers or grasses like larkspur or delphinium. Lastly, but not the least, you add your beautiful roses, zinnias or hollyhocks, and hydrangeas. When you add them at the final stages of creating your dried flower wreaths, you will not need quite as many, and will not be tempted to fill in the empty spaces at random with these special flowers. They should be placed where they can be seen the most and to their best advantage.

The finishing touches can be added with fine grasses or Baby’s Breath, making sure the wreath is well filled out in its entirety.

Your beautiful dried flower wreaths can be hung almost anywhere to give interest and color to an otherwise boring space.

Combining dried herbs to your dried flower wreaths, can enhance the aroma, and also make it very attractive, or you can try a wreath made entirely of herbs. It will be less colorful than dried flower wreaths, but full of the smell of summer.

A few ideas for decorations include material that can also be used either for flavoring food or scenting the bathroom.

A culinary wreath is composed of herbs, herbal sachets and herb flowers used in cooking.

A bathroom wreath can be made in the same way, but using different fragrances.

For a culinary wreath, insert herbal sachets, shallots and garlic all over the wreath, and decorate with marjoram flowers, dill or fennel heads, sprigs of thyme, tarragon, southern-wood and pressed sage or bay leaves.

The filling for a sachet is bouquet garni: a mixture of dried herbs which go well together and then you are able to infuse in sauces and stews. The basic mixture is:

• 1 T dried parsley
• 1 t dried thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 2-3 pepper corns

Bathroom dried flower wreaths are created with sachets of fragrant flowers and herbs. They can include mixtures for the bath water or for rinsing hair. Lavender or marjoram flowers, rose buds, Baby’s Breath and the pressed leaves of the fragrant varieties of a geranium can be used for decoration.

A bath sachet should be hung under the hot water tap while you are running the bath. You can obtain a stronger fragrance by first infusing the sachets for an hour in boiling water, and then leave the lid on the pan while removing it from the heat.

Rosemary and chamomile are very good for hair. Blondes should use chamomile sachets, and brunettes rosemary for a shine respective to their color. Leaving the sachets to infuse in boiling water and then using this as a final rinse, gives an additional shine and pleasant smell.