Georgie Malyon puts on her rose-tinted glasses, gets out her darning needle and paintbrushes and elevates florals to new heights.
1. The Ancient Greeks knew where it was at when it came to garlands – they were constantly stringing up flowers for their parties. I’ve gone for a full fiesta-coloured selection of roses for my garland, but you could instead go autumnal and use leaves. You also need a piece of dowel, a darning needle, clear nylon thread, ribbon, two hooks, scissors, Resene Testpots and paintbrushes.
2. Attach the hooks to each end of your dowel, then paint it. If you’re using a range of colours, you could use painter’s tape so you get a nice even line between each colour, or paint them so they bleed into each other, like I did – just wait for each colour to dry before you add the next. I used Resene Hypnotic, Resene Tango and Resene Scrumptious.
3. Cut three pieces of nylon thread to equal length, long enough that they’ll hang down in a U-shape from your dowel. Tie off both ends of each piece of nylon with a loop so your roses don’t slip off once you start threading them, and for easy hanging.
4. Pierce the threaded needle up through the centre of the first rose – this will allow your roses to all sit nicely upon each other when they’re threaded, but you could instead go through the sides of the roses, depending on their size and how you want them to sit. Continue threading roses onto the nylon, gently pushing each rose down along the thread until it’s completely covered in roses.
5. Tie ribbon to the hooks at the end of each piece of dowel and suspend your garland from the ceiling. Now attach your threaded roses to the dowel, tying one end to the hooks and the other end around the dowel, and spacing your three garlands along the dowel evenly. For full carnivalesque impact, make a couple of these and hang them at slightly different lengths.
Related article: How to craft a colourful bouquet
