Make an Old-Fashioned Wildflower Crown

It’s summertime, and for many of us that means time outside in the wildflower-filled PNW. As a parent, cub-scout volunteer, and general nature enthusiast, I’m always searching for easy, fun, and free ways to engage kids in outdoor activities. Making flower crowns is a skill I learned from my grandmother. When I was a child, she used flower crowns as a cognitive scaffolding and making them kept me engaged as I learned to harvest and preserve culinary and medicinal plants. This process is adaptable to your needs and resources, so feel free to experiment.

Materials

You will need:

1. Fresh flowers

You may also want:

1. Vase with water
2. Scissors or knife
3. Binder clip or clothespin
4. String for hanging/drying your crown
5. Ruler

1. Collect wildflowers that:
2. Have long, flexible stems
3. Have large and sturdy blossoms
4. Are safe to touch (not poisonous or thorny)
5. Are common in your area, not protected
6. Are growing in areas where gathering is allowed
7. Make sure you have enough flowers
8. Make your crown as you pick OR
9. Gather more than what you anticipate needing

1. Remove excess leaves and stems from your flowers
2. Determine a pattern based on your ratio of different flowers
3. If you have an equal number of different blooms, you may choose to do an ABAB pattern
4. If you have twice as many yarrow blossoms as brown-eyed susans, you may choose a AABAAB pattern
5. If you have only a few of one flower, you may choose to add those later, in step 5, rather than in step 3

Helpful Tips/Tricks (Optional)

1. If you aren’t making your crown as you pick flowers, keep your flowers in water until you are ready to use them.
2. Have a binder clip or clothespin ready to temporarily secure your crown in case you need to pause your work in the middle of the process.

1. Choose two flowers with very long, strong, and flexible stems
2. With the blossom on the first stem facing away from you, lay the second stem on top of the first with the blossom on the second/top flower to your left and the stem on the right
3. Holding the two blossoms close together, bend the stem of the second/top flower away from you, and then back around to the left
4. Then, bring the stem back towards you between the two blossoms, and down to lay parallel with the first stem
5. Hold the stems together in your left hand and repeat the “stitch” (Step 3, numbers 2-4) with your next flower

1. Continue the steps of Part 3, creating a flower chain as seen in the images
2. Gently bend to shape your flower chain into a curve as you go
3. Continue adding to your chain until it is long enough to create a circle with a 6-inch inner diameter
4. To join your ends, place your starting flower next to your most recent flower, and add a stitch (Step 3, numbers 2-4) around both the beginning flowers and the most recent.
5. Add another stitch, placing the blossom between the second and third flowers of your original chain, wrapping your stem around the original chain and the remaining stems
6. Continue adding stitches that join the stems with the original chain, placing blossoms between every other flower
7. Continue until you have made a complete second pass around your flower crown
8. Tuck loose stems into through the sturdiest parts of the crown, and trim any which stick out afterwards

1. Now that you have a solid crown, you may add extra flowers into spots that are bare by cutting the stems short and pushing them into the chain
2. If you reserved flowers from step 2 that were large or had breakable stems, add them to your crown by cutting the stems short and pushing them into the chain
3. Two examples are included of a finished crown

1. Flower crowns can be refrigerated to preserve them for wearing, but they don’t last longer than a few days
2. Drying your crown can be a good method of preservation, if you hang the crown upside down in a dry space for several weeks. Use twine, string, or fishing line to do this.
3. Crowns can be worn, used as wreaths, or left as chains (before Step 4) for drying medicinal or culinary flowers such as yarrow

When disposing of your crown, feel free to compost or return your crown to the area in which you gathered the flowers, but do not return non-native or invasive plants