by Christy

Strolling down the aisles of a local department store about a year ago, I came across a dried rose topiary that had, "Hey, I could do that!" written all over it. Well here I am a year later and my roses from a couple months ago have dried nicely. Perhaps yours have too, and you’re wondering what the heck to do with them now. Well regardless of whether or not Mr. or Ms. Valentine’s Day Date is still in your life, you’ll be pleased as punch at how quick and easy this dried floral craft is. I think it took us a total of twenty minutes to do, and we just used the supplies my mother had lying about her house. If you don’t have Mom’s craft supplies to raid, just spend a few bucks at your local craft store and you’ll be rarin’ to go.

Here’s what we used.

Supplies

container

floral foam or oasis

dried grass or Spanish moss

dried roses or other dried flowers

needle-nose pliers

ribbon (optional)

Steps

Let’s start with the basics…

A nice container is the basis for this craft.

First, select a container that will be the right proportion to your stem length. A good rule of thumb, if you’re working with a rectangular container, is to select one that is just an inch or two shorter than your stem length.

Our roses are a little taller than our container is long, and it ends up being a nicely proportioned piece.

Now, cut your floral foam or oasis to size with a knife, and place it in the container. Our foam came nearly to the top of the container. We took some extra dried grass and tucked it in around the edges of the foam to secure the blocks tightly in place.

Spread the dried grass or Spanish moss out over the top of the foam as shown in the previous picture. Lay it on pretty thick, so the floral foam doesn’t show through. We found that we didn’t even need to secure our dried grass with anything once we started poking the roses through to the foam.

Plan out how many rows of roses you need to fill the container before you start putting them in place. We ended up with two rows of six roses. Once you have a plan worked up in your head, start in the middle and work your way out row by row. The needle-nose pliers came in handy here to barrel through the thick grass and get to the foam. We pushed our stems all the way to the bottom of the container. In a couple cases, we had to pull the roses back out and clip an inch or two off the end of the stem with wire cutters to match the height of the rest of the roses. Don’t be afraid to pull the flowers out or twist them around to achieve maximum effect.

Here’s the craft in progress.

Once we were finished, we took some of the petals that had fallen off in the process and scattered them around in the grass. We also attempted a couple different bows, but none of them seemed to compliment the arrangement. Feel free to add a bow if your version of this craft seems to need a little extra flare.

Your friends will be amazed when you tell them it only took you 20 minutes and five bucks to whip this craft up.

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