Back to Flower School With Bloom & Wild

For as long as I can remember, the arrival of September has brought with it feelings of excitement and anticipation. With a new term and sudden shift from slow summer living back to routine, lunchboxes and brand new pencil cases, I've always loved the changes this month brings.

The sudden nip to the air, which you can almost taste, that creeps in this month also heralds a change to the seasons and a nod towards cosier days. If you've been following this blog or my Instagram for a while you will have noticed that I love to mark these changes in our home and, for me, there's no lovelier way to do it than through flowers.

So when Bloom & Wild invited me to go 'Back to Flower School' with them, to share flower inspiration and tips for Autumn I was first the first to say yes (miss). My sparkling new pencil case was replaced with a letterbox sized box of blooms and my homework to create something beautiful from The Suki, a stunning limited edition bouquet.

With an evening with friends lined up at our house and an Autumnal menu with our weekend's allotment harvest planned, I decided to create two different wreaths to welcome our guests and adorn our candlelit hearth.

I kept both wreaths quite simple using all of the elements from The Suki, made up of an eye catching combination of Protea (with a pineapple looking outer leaf) and the sofest pink Bella roses. The tools I used can be easily brought from a local florist and in a few simple steps I was able to put together two beautiful Autumnal wreaths.

If you fancy having a go too, you'll need:

Florist Wire

Natural Twine

Scissors (any old pair will do!)

 Secateurs for the tougher stems (if you have them)

Circular Wreath

Front Door Wreath

For the first wreath I used an old wooden wreath that I've used in our home before. It had sadly been left to the outside elements and hung neglected on our patio wall. Waste not want not in my book though and I set about tidying it up and snipping off any straggly bits of wood and old string I'd tied to it. 

I selected each element of the bouquet, including a Protea head, Rose, Veronica and a small piece of the foliage (Dracena Sanderiana Gold) putting them together to form a small posy.

Using about 5 inches of wire I tied the bottom of the posy together, twisting the wire at the back to tighten it in place. I used this same method (using a longer piece of wire) to attach the posy to the wreath itself. Thankfully the wreath had plenty of space in it to work the wire through to be back.

The loose structure of the wreath also meant that I could add a few stems of Veronica, weaving them around easily to finish it off.

 

The pinks in The Suki complimented our front door beautifully and it was lovely to be able to reuse something I already had (albeit neglected and forgotten), giving it a new lease of life with a few simple touches. 

The Rose lasted well overnight but I knew it'd need a bit of water to keep it going. Thankfully it was easy enough to gently pull out of the posy and pop in a small bud vase along with some Veronica.

Natural Green Wreath

Also included in The Suki was some wild and exotic looking foliage with a strong, flexible stem which I knew would bend easily to create a more natural wreath. I've been inspired by lots of images of this style of wreath on Instagram so decided to have a go myself. 

I fastened the stems to each other using the same method I used with the posy. Wrapping a piece of wire around and twisting it at the back to keep it in place. Once the stems were attached I gently bent them round into a circle and attached the two ends together in the same way.

Unlike the wooden wreath, the dark wire was clearly visible against the green stems so I used a natural hemp string, wrapping it around the stems helping to bind them together.

I was really pleased with how this wreath turned out, the leaves gave it a much more untameable feel (it did have to be strongly encouraged to be a circle!) and the twine complimented the rustic style really well.

I had plenty of flowers left from the bouquet which I used to fill different size vessels to decorate our hearth, helping to tie everything together. Along with plenty of candles, it provided the perfect focal point as we enjoyed drinks and a catch up with good friends.

I loved trying something different with this bouquet, homework has never looked so good! I recently started a subscription with Bloom & Wild as I knew that as our Summer of garden flowers drew to a close I'd still want blooms around our home. The wooden wreath will be an easy thing to keep using, no longer forgotten and straggly but something I can now refresh with new blooms as they arrive each month, ready to welcome guests this Autumn.

Do you have something similar you could refresh and bring a new lease of life to? You can find the full range of Bloom & Wild bouquets here, why not pick a bunch and have a go too. If you have a go at making a wreath, do drop me a line and let me know how you get on.

 This post was written in collaboration with Bloom & Wild, whereby I was gifted The Suki bouquet and invited 

to create a project. All words and ideas are entirely my own.