How to Make a Lavender Wand
Looking for an easy project to use up some lavender? Here’s how to make a lavender wand.
I am fortunate to have lavender growing in my yard. It grows really easily underneath a bay window that is sheltered and so it doesn’t get much rain. To be honest, we mostly ignore it and it just thrives.
Because I have these beautiful lavender plants, I’m always looking for ideas of what to do with my lavender. Typically I dry it use in projects such as:
These are great projects to use lavender. It involves harvesting the lavender and drying it. But what else could I do?
What is a Lavender Wand?
A lavender wand is a bouquet of lavender in which the actual lavender buds are enclosed and it is wrapped in a ribbon.
History says that ladies during the Victorian era made these to help preserve the flowers. Simply roll between your hands and you can appreciate the wonderful, soothing scent of lavender.
Keep your lavender wand in your drawers, in your car or even just out in a room to enjoy the lovely scent of lavender.
Lavender wands make beautiful hostess gifts, party favours or a simple appreciation gift. They would be a perfect adornment to a gift as well.
Supplies Needed
It doesn’t take much to make these lavender wands.
- Fresh lavender – you’ll want an odd number of stems, like 9 or 15. The more you have, the trickier (but nicer) the final product will be. If you are starting out, try a smaller number. Once you get better at the technique, use more.
Fresh works best as you need to bend the stems. If the lavender has dried a bit, you runt he risk of snapping it. I literally cut the lavender and then made my wand right away. - Ribbon – 3/8 ribbon works nicely, but really any size will do.
- Craft glue.
How to Make a Lavender Wand
- Remove any leaves and bundle your lavender together so that the base is all together
- Secure your bundle together by wrapping the ribbon around it and tying a knot.
- Some secure this with a small hair elastic, but it is not necessary. If you do this, you will wrap your ribbon around it to hide it.
- Trim the short end of the ribbon
- Gently bend the stems of lavender at the base so that it goes up and covers the buds
- You’ll want to do this gently as you do not want to break any of the stems
- I find that it helps sometimes to make a little crease with my finger nail – don’t break the outer skin of the stem though
- Basically, the stems will be splayed out all around – we will be encasing or enclosing all of the flowers with the stems.
- Now work your ribbon in an over and then under and then over and then under pattern around the flower buds.
- As you work, you will be pulling the stems down (180 degree angle), so that the stems and the ribbon form a cage around the flower buds. You will not really see the flower buds.
- It’s tricky at first to get started, but once the first couple of rounds are done, it gets easier. The main thing is to keep the order of the stems correctly. Keep checking the weaving pattern so that it looks right – it should be alternating.
- Try to keep your weaving pattern as snug as possible. Coax it up as you work it.
- You will likely lose a few flower buds while you do this. It seems inevitable. Don’t throw them out – you can use them and dry them individually.
- Once the flower buds are covered, secure the ribbon with a dot of craft glue
- Trim the stems so that they are all the same length.
- Next you are going to wind the ribbon around the stems.
- In order to keep it secure, I like to add a few dots of glue to the ribbon, just before winding.
- Now wind the ribbon all the way around – keeping it nice and snug.
- You don’t need to go to the very bottom – you can leave some stem showing.
- Once you get to the end, trim the ribbon and secure it with some glue.
- If you wish, you can add a bow at the bottom.
Now I will admit that this is something that will require a bit of practice in order to get it neat and tidy. So plan to make a couple of them.
For my first few tries, they weren’t perfect, but they looked pretty good.
I gave these away with a thank you card to some people that I knew. It was a nice little something to give. I will be making more on a regular basis.
