How to make a late summer flower cloud

The first in a series of joyful seasonal installations, crafts, wreaths and ornaments for you to try at home.

Sep 15, 2024

Join our ‘Dead Crap Gang’ and have fun with nature.

Today is the beginning of my new practical series on HOME & HORT, where we’ll be bringing the outside in to style up your home for the seasons. The autumn and winter months can be hard for so many of us, so the idea is that together we create nature-inspired decorations to bring us all a little joy and light. Why not join us as we forage for evergreens and dried up old bracken, thistles and twigs, decorate pumpkins and festoon our trees just for the sheer joy of it all? We’re called The Dead Crap Gang and we’d love for you to be a member!

Over the coming weeks and months I’m going to be making floral/foliage displays, pumpkin art, wreaths, swags and Christmas ornaments as well as a few showstoppers. I’ll be giving you a step by step guide so that you can join in at home. I’ve decided that this first installation is free for all, but the rest will be for paid members, so don’t miss out!

By accepting the changing of the seasons and celebrating them at every opportunity, we can help keep our spirits high. Last weekend I shared an introductory post all about mindfulness, seasonal styling and enjoying the seasons as they happen, rather than wishing away time. You can catch that here if you missed it.

If, like me, you are holding on to the end of summer, then you’ll be happy to know that the first installation is a late summer extravaganza. As I said last weekend, it isn’t autumn until next Sunday and I’ve heard that this week in England we might have a mini heatwave, so I’m very excited about that!

I thought it only fitting that I start off this new series of seasonal crafts with a bit of a showstopper. It’s my take on a late summer flower cloud. Don’t know what a flower cloud is? Well, it’s a big blob of dried or fresh flowers and foliage suspended in the sky as if by magic. You can make your flower cloud any shape and size, but just remember that it needs to hang from the ceiling and look as light and fluffy as a candy floss. You don’t need to hang it over a dining table like I have. Perhaps there’s a lovely reading corner where a small one would look great above a Windsor back chair? Or, maybe a little floral joy above your loo? Let your imagination run wild and have fun with it.

Which dried flowers?

As this is the first in the series I’m going to stick with dried flowers as they are so much easier to manage than fresh. Plus, the attaching of water receptacles to the chicken wire base can be a tad tricky, so let’s move on to that later in the series.

Any dried flowers will do. You might have hydrangeas in your garden. Now is the perfect time to dry them. You can either hang them upside down in a cool, dry place, or place them in a vase, but with only one inch of water in it. They will gradually dry without wilting that way. Other flowers that dry easily include Gypsophila, lavender, strawflowers, globe thistles, Statice, Astilbe, Calendula and cornflowers.

I already had a large choice of blooms as I collect them and re-use them again and again. I chose Gypsophila in both the natural white and some that is dyed blue. The white I dried myself after buying fresh and using it for Christmas decorations one year. The blue I bought from a floral wholesaler, but you can buy it online: Floralfields.co.uk

I then used dried cotton stems, which really add to the cloud-like feel and give structure. I also used dried white Broom and bleached white Briza. If you are buying all of your dried flowers then it can seem expensive, but remember that you’ll have them forever.

What else do I need?

A roll of floristry chicken wire.
A good set of pliers.
Floristry wire for securing your cloud’s shape.
Clear fishing line for hanging.
A pen with a firm clip on the cap, or a sturdy bulldog clip.
A ladder.
A ceiling hook.
A drill and pilot hole drill bit.
A thirst for fun and prettiness!

Here’s a good set I found on Amazon. This is the best fishing line for the job. I used these ceiling hooks as I was screwing into wood. If you have a plastered ceiling then you’ll need to use a RAWL plug first.

Where do I start?

I promise this is really easy. First of all you need to create your cloud base using the chicken wire. It will come in a roll and I would suggest staying with a sausage shape for now, but if you’re feeling brave then by all means create anything you want, go on, knock yourself out! Cut the wire carefully with the pliers and then secure your shape by bending the cut edges of the wire into the rest of the frame. You can also use floristry wire to tie loose ends. I then like to fold in both ends of my chicken wire tube so that there is something to poke blooms through.
Now you need to secure a hook in your ceiling. I used a small pilot hole drill bit and drilled a one inch hole in my wooden beam so that it was then easier to screw my ceiling hook into place.
Next measure the height of your ceiling. Cut a length of fishing line that is twice the height of your ceiling. My ceiling is 4 metres high, so I cut eight metres of line. Attach both ends of your fishing line to the clip on your pen cap or bulldog clip. This acts as a weight to your pulley system, but also attaches to the cloud to keep it in place. Then take the loop end of your line, carefully climb your ladder and place the loop over your ceiling hook. Then untie one of the ends attached to your pen clip and attach it to your cloud and pull down so that your cloud starts to rise on the pulley system you have now created.
When your cloud is at a good working height from the floor, secure the clip pen, or a bull dog clip to your cloud to keep it at the level you want. Please see the video for all of this, as it’s much easier to understand by watching.
Still with me? Ok, now you can start weaving your dried flowers through the chicken wire. There are no rules. You can do whatever takes your fancy, but do remember it is a 3D object and will be visible from all angles. Don’t forget that you will eventually be using your pulley system to raise your cloud to the desired height. When you do this you won’t want to see bare patches of chicken wire. Have fun!
When you are finished pull your cloud to the desired height and then, using your ladder, attach the loose end of your fishing reel to the top of your cloud securely. Or, you can do what I did and secure it to an adjacent surface, knob, or beam. You could add a screw to an adjacent wall and then tie the loose end to that. It’s so thin it won’t be seen!

Describing how to do the slightly fiddly pen and reel work was tricky, but I promise it’s actually very easy to do. Have fun and I want to see your flower clouds! Next week we are making a wreath. Yay! Xx

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