Floral Swag
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Save Money On Your Special Day With DIY
By making items yourself, you may save money. Plus, you will get just what you want, because it has been custom made!
Size Of Floral Swag
The size is determined by the sizes and types of branches and florals used in your swag. Ours measured approximately 28” wide by 24” in height (from top of blue hydrangea to bottom of hanging greenery).
SUPPLIES
Colors, florals, and greenery will depend on your purpose and color scheme.
Choose your colors based on your own preferences and purpose.
glue gun: We used a hot glue gun. A cold glue gun can be used instead - hardening time is less. Hot glue takes longer to harden, providing more time to work with the piece, but that can be a plus or a minus. We had to hold a few places until it hardened. There were times we wished we had a cold glue gun on hand. I will keep that in mind for future projects.
floral wire, wire cutter, & floral tape: We used 24 gauge green wire. We purchased a roll of 150 feet, so will have plenty for future projects.
Floral wire is used for attaching stems of greenery or florals to the main piece (or to other pieces of greenery or flowers). The wire ties stems together.
You might also need to add floral wire to stems to lengthen them, or to create more length. That was not necessary for us, as we had chosen greenery with long, strong stems.
For small flowers that are glued onto the greenery, you will need to snip off the stems of the flowers about an inch from the flower. Cut as you go, so you don’t cut flowers you will not be using, and you will get a feel for the proper length as you go along.
flowers & greenery: We chose blue hydrangeas for the top, center because this went with the wedding color theme. Two large, blue hydrangeas created the focal point for the piece. We added a few small, white flowers for contrast and interest.
We choose an assortment of greenery. Our main piece of greenery had a central, strong stem, which we kept as our base. We used the floral wire to attach all other greenery pieces to that stem and to smaller stems that had been tied to that one main central stem.
table protection: We used a plastic table cloth to protect our working table.
wax paper: Glue can drip; the wax paper should be placed under the swag during the gluing process to protect the working surface.
Gadget For Hanging: I say gadget because what you use depends on how the swag will be hung. We had to hang ours between two tables that were side by side. A c-clamp did not work - we had to support the swag on each side of the point where the tables came together. One end of the swag attached to one table, and the other end attached to the other table.
Kevin (member of our project team) “McGyvered” the perfect solution. He used magnets and duct tape for attaching the swag to the wedding party tables (see instructions below).
If you are centering your swag on one table, a C-clamp should work. You will need to measure the table to be sure the C-clamp is the correct size. There are YouTube videos to show this process.
DIRECTIONS
See the photos below - click on photo for larger view.
1. Form The Base Of The Floral Swag
We lay down several pieces of greenery (stems with leaves), plus our flowers, to get an overall feel for design. Once we decided what pieces we would use, we chose the central, main piece that we would use as our base. It was a beautiful piece, with variegated green, and had a strong central stem. You do NOT NEED to have the central stem, but we found this to be useful. The first step was to bend all branches to the sides. We divided the branches in half, so each side would have the same fullness.
As an alternative, you could use floral foam as the base. That would be constructed differently. There are YouTube videos that show that process. We liked having the stem to hold onto. It was handy for holding and transporting the swag.
2. Attach Wire & Start Laying Down Greenery & Florals
Feed a piece of floral wire around the main stem and smaller stem that you wish to attach the next layer to.
The following photo shows wire being tied around a stem from the base and a new stem. One side is done, and the other is just being tied. Each new piece of greenery or flower will be tied to an existing stem by twisting wire around the two stems. The key is to get a TIGHT twist. Hold the two ends of the wire, cross them, and twist very tight.
Leave wire ends at this point, because they might still be needed. The excess wire can be trimmed later.
The following photo shows the first branches attached, and more branches laid out to check for placement.
This is a close up of the above photo, showing the two branches tied onto base layer branches. We now have our base layer, and the first two fern branches tied on.
After we had our first few branches attached to the base, we laid down several more branches to check again for placement. We knew that the two hydrangeas would be placed at the top, center, and other flowers would be added.
In the following photo, other than the first two branches, the greenery branches are not yet attached. At this point, we had just set them out to check the design.
Continue tying on branches of greenery. You can cut excess wire tails as you go.
3. Attach Underside Branches
We had chosen ferns to hang straight down from the top center of the floral swag. We used a lot of wire to attach them to the main stem.
4. Cut Excess Stems
At this point, we cut off excess stems protruding from the top or other areas of the swag.
It is not very pretty at this point, with all the wires showing. No worries! They will not show when the swag is finished. It is important that the branches are secured in place, so don’t be shy about using wire.
All greenery branches are securely in place at this point. All that remains are the flowers.
5. Glue, Glue, Glue
You can now go through again and cut excess wire if there is any remaining.
Place wax paper under your swag (we found that the glue dripped).
Use your hot (or cold) glue gun to glue every spot that has wire holding branches together. The glue is the final reinforcement. It ensures that wire “knots” will not slip or come undone.
6. Attach Top Center Flowers
Cut the stem of the center flowers very short. Apply glue to the back of the flowers, and place onto the swag. Use extra glue as necessary to the underside of the flowers.
As you can see, the glue drips. Also, the back side and top area behind the hydrangeas are not very pretty, but none of that will show once the swag is in place on the table.
7. Attach remaining Flowers
We decided to add several small flowers for accent. The stems were cut very short, and they were hot glued into place (no wires were used).
The following photo shows the back side, with one stem that is still sticking up a bit. We left that one because it didn’t show from the front.
8. Attach Floral Swag To Table
Question: how do you attach a floral swag to a table edge???
We had a bit of a unique situation, in that the swag needed to be placed at the intersection of two tables. We tried various things, and found that hanging the swag from hooks that would be on each side of the center stem was the best option.
A magnet was taped to each table, at the place where a hanger hook was needed. We used duct tape to hold the magnets to the table. The table cloths would hide these taped magnets.
Then hooks (with magnets on back) were placed over the table magnets. The photo shows the hooks directly on the magnets. Of course, during the reception, table cloths covered the magnets. The hooks still held tight to the magnets under the table cloths.
This worked perfectly! The hooks held the swag in place on our test run, and during the wedding reception.
Our finished floral swag hung perfectly, centered between the two wedding banquet tables. We were so pleased with the results.
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