Lavender wands - so lovely

lavender wands

Lavender wands began in Victorian times to preserve the fragrance and freshen up linens or add a waft of lavender scent into the room.  I found a little tutorial online and decided to try making these gems myself.   

There are so many different varieties of lavender.  My favorite is Angustaforia,  Hidcote.  It is an English lavender used for both fragrance and cooking.  I use lavender quite a bit in my kitchen: lavender ice cream, lavender syrup, lavender lemonade, lavender sugar and salt.  I also use the flowers in sachets: lavender eye pillows and in my heat pillow.  The fragrance from the blossoms or essential oils is very relaxing.  I use a little essential oil on my wrists before I go to bed. 

All in all I LOVE lavender.

So I started with my lavender garden:

lavendula angustaforia, Hidcote. home

I took this pic just yesterday.....January in California.!

cluster of lavender

For one wand you need 18 lavender stems, 30 inches of 3/8 inch ribbon, a bit of floral wire, a dab of glue from a glue gun.

Long long stems are perfect.  It's January.  I picked the longest stems I had but they are a bit short.  The stems will be longer in June.  You want to work with the stems when they are still pliable.  I let the blooms sit on the table a couple of hours so they would become limp.  Waiting too long will result in brittle stems.

a bit of floral wire twisted around the bottom of the cluster

upside down cluster

Turn the cluster upside down to let the stems flop over the blossoms.

Attach the end of a 30" piece of ribbon and wrap 3 times.

Then start to weave the ribbon over and under the stems, two at a time.

When you've covered the blossoms, wrap the ribbon again and seal with a pearl size drop of glue (from a hot glue gun)

pretty ribbons, 3/8" wide

I made a dozen of these this weekend.  I yet need to trim the bottom of the stems to be even.  You can choose any color ribbon, of course but I like this color.

a dozen wands

There are lots of tutorials on how to make these.  It was a fun project except I wanted to take a nap the whole time

single lavender wand