.png)
Hey Friends!
Welcome to the blog @ indigo!
For my FIRST blog post, I am sharing a DIY Floral Wall I did for one of my clients this past summer. She came to me with an idea of putting flowers on a wall to film her videos for her online business. The ideas immediately starting flowin'...
STEP 1: DECIDE HOW BIG YOU WANT IT TO BE
We knew we were going to attach this to the wall behind the desk and that it would be over our Besta cabinet (more on that later). Typically, when I hang items on the wall over a cabinet, dresser, etc. it needs to be at least half the length of the cabinet. But because we wanted this floral wall to fit into a full camera angle we decided longer would be best. The same goes with height. We wanted to keep the floral wall a few inches above the gold cabinets. For this project we decided 36" tall and about 55" wide.
STEP 2: FIND SOME CUTE HELPERS
Check! I contemplated a few different ways of making the floral wall. My first thought was to get a thin piece of plywood and hang it using a picture hanger and wire. I didn't want it to be that heavy or really put holes in the wall. I really wanted to "hot glue and shove" the flowers into some type of foam, knowing it would be the quickest method. The next variable was deciding what the pieces of foam would actually attach to. I thought about spray gluing the foam to a thick paper but didn't think that would be sturdy enough.
So I set out with my trusty team to the Lowe's in hopes something would jump out at me. And it did. Enter white lattice:
This stuff is very inexpensive ($19.99) for a giant sheet of it. It is sturdy but bendable making it the best option for our project.
The foam board we decided on was cheap (@ $15) and came in a pack of 6 pieces. I believe the foam was originally for some type of insulation and each piece was about 1" thick. Craft foam board would probably work well too but it was cheaper to buy it at Lowes.
STEP 3: CUT THE LATTICE & FOAM TO SIZE
We trimmed the lattice to the size we wanted and laid the foam boards side by side on the lattice. We then doubled the foam boards. Gluing them on top of one another.
About the glue:
We bought a few different kinds of glue. I needed to glue the foam to the lattice fencing. We bought a "spray" adhesive and a few of the typical krazy glue, liquid nails, type stuff.
Well the spray glue ATE THROUGH THE FOAM... WHOOPS.
Needing another solution, I found some caulking in the basement and saw it was suitable for foam. We then added caulking to the lattice and laid the foam boards to that.
The caulking took DAYS to dry. Literally, days. I checked once in the morning and once at night and every time it got stronger and stronger. Overall, about 3-4 days.
STEP 4: BUYING THE FLOWERS
This is a pretty easy step but can seem pretty daunting considering it was hard to tell how many I needed, what flowers I should buy, and how many I should get.
I set out to Michael's during one of their 50% off floral sales. I loaded up with the biggest flowers first: Peony's. Michael's sells large Peony "bushes" for $12.99 and there are about 8 flowers in each bush. Knowing I would have to come back to buy more flowers, I started with 8 bushes. I bought white, cream, coral, and light pink. I then went back for 8 more bushes, same colors, and got a ton of misc. flowers ranging in size. I also got some "buds" (see far right picture). These flowers are the ones that look like they have not yet bloomed. Knowing I wanted to add in some greenery, I got some dried eucalyptus as well.
STEP 5: ADDING THE 3,647,268 FLOWERS TO THE FOAM BOARD
...Well maybe not that many, it just felt like it!
I set out on a beautiful Sunday morning thinking I could knock this project out in about an hour or so. Well... it took more like 7 hours.
I started cutting all the flowers from their stems, leaving about 1.5" of stem left. I then hot glued around the base of each flower and just started shoving flowers into the foam board. I quickly started grouping flowers together (see far right image). I also put the flowers in at different angles. See below...
Left photo: Flower was placed into the board straight on.
Right photo: Flower was placed into the board at an angle.
I did this to create more dimension.
I continued to add more and more flowers using only the large Peony bushes. I grouped them together until most of the board was covered.
NOTE: Keep the leaves that come on the Peony Bushes! As I went along, I added the small grouping of leaves to the sides of the Peony's and the sides of the board.
As you can also see, I did this outside on my porch, which made clean-up THAT much easier. (Photo bombed by my kids being sweet to each other.)
I then started to add the eucalyptus stems to weave around the flowers. Like the stems, I only hot glued the ends of the eucalyptus and just "tucked" them in and around the other flowers. If they stuck out a little that was fine.
Fast forward 7 hours and all of my fingertips burnt from the hot glue, I made it!
STEP 6: HOW TO HANG IT
If you can believe it, we hung this bad boy using ONLY command strips. We added 8-10 extra large command strips to the back of the LATTICE, not the foam board. It was actually pretty secure to the wall and no reported falling incidents to date. Who would have thought we could hang a feature wall this large, damage free?
It turned out better than I imagined and my client LOVED it.
Total Cost for the project: Just under $300.
My client and friend, Lily Burns, in front of her floral wall!
Click on the photo to see more about her business, Living Well Mama.