I have a friend who is very crafty and is always making something to beautify her home using the most inexpensive supplies. Her end product is always stunning! I just loved her most recent craft. I even made one myself and it didn’t take long at all and cost me nothing but a short walk. Take a peak!

Stitched Little Pieces ~ Flower Dryer

This week’s craft is whimsical, yet homey. A flower dryer is a place to hang flowers upside down to dry, so that the flower is preserved in a healthy state. This project will make flower drying look much more cute and desirable.

Supplies:

- Sticks - pliable sticks that will bend without breaking (I used the trimmings from one of our pear trees)
- Wire - to wrap around the sticks (I used 20 gauge)
- Wire cutters - to cut the wire
- Pliers - for twisting wire, if desired
- Twine - to wrap around wire and to give it a sweet look
- Scissors - to cut the twine

Directions:

1. Get a visual of what it is to look like by laying it out on the ground - come up with whatever shape you want it to be. While in the laying out process, I wrapped wire around the meeting place near the top of the two sides, if you have two that are needing bent and aren’t staying together, just twist the wire around them until it is stable enough to work with.
2. Begin by wrapping wire around each twig/stick intersection - several times in an X to ensure security. At this point you can twist the two wires around each other and the fold the end down, or, like I did, you can leave an inch or two of the wire to be trimmed off later.
3. After all the crossing points of the sticks are wired together tightly, go ahead and wrap it in the same way with twine.
4. Cover all signs of wire (excluding the couple inches left out for clipping later), by making X’s with the twine.
5. On the back side of the intersection, tie the two ends of twine in a tight knot.
6. Snip twine closely, but not too close. If you can see the ends from the front, that is alright, it makes it even more cute.
7. Take the wire cutters and trim off the end of the wires, close to - if not under - the twining. If the end is poking out and sharp, take the pliers and bend the wire back under the twine.
8. The back of each joined twig should look something like this.
9. This is what mine looked like before I trimmed the bottom, and wrapped twine around the joining section of the two sides (shown below).

10. Wrap the wire, all along joined area. Take the twine and lay it along the middle, leaving a tail of about three inches or more.
11. Begin wrapping twine around the sticks, covering up the twine that was laid down the middle, and leaving the tail out at the other end.
12. After covering the connected two sticks, tie a knot with the tail that was left out, and the twine that was being wrapped around. Snip close, but not too close.

This was quite fun to make, and didn’t take very long. It now resides in our kitchen, drying flowers.

Please visit Miss Emily Rose’s blog “the time that has elapsed” to see more wonderful crafts and other interesting articles! It’s one of my favourite sites to visit. She definitely has an eye for beauty.