Hi, guys! It's Mandi here. I love having flowers in my home, but I can rarely justify buying a fresh bouquet at my every impulse, only to have them die a few days later. Wah, wah. Fortunately, there are a lot of beautiful and realistic looking artificial flowers available at craft stores these days, so I recently splurged on a few pretties. I wanted to make a funky pair of sculptural vases for displaying them. These wire vases are a bit bohemian, but also modern in a quirky way. They look great with or without flowers—and the best part is, they're cheap and easy to make. Check out my instructions below!Supplies:
– Heavier gauge wire (This 10 gauge wire is great—I used electrical wiring, because I had it on hand)
– Electrical tape
– Wire cutters
– Scissors
– 1ʺ-2ʺ strips of scrap fabric (Use any color or pattern, and feel free to mix it up!)
– Optional: needle and thread matching your fabric strips
Step One: Cut six pieces of wire to the same length. They should be about an inch or two taller than your desired final height, or for a wider vase, maybe three to four inches taller. You will also want to cut smaller pieces of wire to go horizontally across the vertical lengths that you just cut. These sizes will vary depending on how wide you want your vases to be at any point, but just make sure you make the bottom diameter wide enough to keep the vase from toppling over.
Step Two: Bend down the ends of the cut wires and secure with electrical tape, leaving enough of an opening for two pieces of wire to squeeze through. Do this on each end. At this point, it's very important to make sure each piece of wire ends up being the exact same length, or your final vases will be crooked.Step Three: Thread the horizontal cross wires through the openings of the loops you just made in step two. Close them into circles by using electrical tape. Do this on the top and the bottom.
Step Four: Fasten the looped vertical wires to the circular base by wrapping electrical wire crosswise around the joints. I cut my electical wire pieces in half to make them narrower so the joints weren't as bulky. For this step, try to make sure each vertical wire is evenly spaced before taping it into place. When you've secured the joints at the bottom of the vase, do the joints at the top. Then shape the bends of the vase to give it its shape, and fit the middle circles into place the same way you did the top and bottom of the vase. The middle circles are there for support, keeping the final vase from being a little wobbly.Step Five: Wrap strips of fabric around the wire skeleton. This helps the final vases to be sturdy, but also provides a decorative element by giving them a more bohemian feel. Before you do this step, make sure you get out any weird kinks or misshapen parts of the vase, but don't worry—you can always reshape it a bit once you're finished wrapping it with fabric!
To finish off a strip of fabric and start a new one, tape around the bottom of the fabric, and then wrap the fabric over the tape to camouflage the seam. See above images for clarification. When you've finished wrapping, tuck the end piece of fabric under the beginning point, or stitch it into place with needle and thread.Look, ma! No water! Okay, so these wire vases might belie the fact that you're using artificial flowers in your home, but who cares? They make a great addition to any vignette—with flowers, or without!
Credits // Author and Photography: Mandi Johnson, Photos edited with Spring and Valentine of the Signature Collection.
43 Comments
so pretty! I would love to do this in white or gold. great diy inspiration! thanks! xx. gigi. http://www.gigikkitchen.com
Such a great idea! Thanks for sharing!
Mandi, this is amazing! I love it! you are a such inspiration!!
These are fantastic and very unique!
– Janine from janinemaral.com
What a fun and cute way to display flowers.. Love it!
/Tine
http://solastdecadeblog.blogspot.dk/
Nicely done.
Possibly add a test tube and you could add a real flower. A test tube is small and clear so I don’t think it would detract from the vase. (Or even a small glass jar).
One more DIY on my list to try Mandi.. Thanks
Such a cute idea and very well executed! xx
http://www.creativityandchocolate.com
Hey Mandi,
Great project. You could also wrap the wire in yarn…would take longer but really cool too.
You have so many creative ideas… We love to see all these inspirations…
To fly with your thoughts a little away… here a couple of pics from the middle east.
http://lasagnolove.blogspot.de/2014/04/muscat-oman.html
have a wonderful Wednesday,
Birds from the fatcatconnection
This is so clever and simple! You keep giving me so many home decor ideas to try out. Is there any specific type of fabric you recommend using?
I’m so doing this and wrapping in gold!
http://sunkissedrayy.blogspot.com/
I love your idea, there so creative and have given me so many ideas. Thanks 🙂
http://www.randomindistilling.blogspot.com
these look fab, not sure how long the flowers would last though would need plastic ones i guess
Lauren
livinginaboxx
What a creative idea!
So cool and interesting! But it looks kinda hard to make it.. 🙂
http://ladykfashionparty.blogspot.com/
This is a really cool idea!
http://brittannytaylor.com/blog/
… such a simple but so creative idea! … absolutely love it! Thank you Mandi… hope I can try to make it…
These are so cool! Plus, you can get really great artificial flowers now a days that look SO real!
xoxo
Taylor
Amazingly simple and beautiful.
:O These are so me!
First, I have a black thumb: I even kill cacti.
I turned to crocheting my cacti (I call them Cacti You Can Cuddle[.indiemade.com btw]), and flowers.
Secondly, I am a huuuuuuuuuuge sucker for anything concrete that looks drawn. Huge. I want to live in a home furnished by Jinil Park and Daigo Fukawa. And with a Kartell Bubble Sofa.
Soooo, this made me ultra happy, and it’s been an inspiring morning already.
so in love with this idea! i think you would even be able to switch out the fabric when you wanted to change it up?
xo jac
thesunshinedistrict.blogspot.com
love these vases. i think i’d add a test tube to the top. so i could use it for real flowers.
Lovely! Those artificial flowers do look real, and lilies are my favourites!
If you did go for real flowers though, there are some thrifty tips to make them last longer: http://makethriftlovelife.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/fill-your-house-with-fresh-flowers-for.html
Gayle x
This is so pretty Mandi! So what if the flowers must be artificial, it is absolutely beautiful!
xoxo
Theano (www.theaxessorize.blogspot.com)
Lovely idea ^^
These cases look so chic! Makes people look twice haha 😉
http://everydayingrace.blogspot.ca/
Such a genius idea
I’m definitely going to do this for my new apartment! Thanks for the post!
Although they may not be quite as sturdy, I thought these were made from pipe cleaners. I bet they’d be a lot easier to work with. 🙂
Thanks, Lauren! Yeah, you’ll definitely want to use artificial flowers. I mentioned above that the flowers I used are artificial, and it’s so easy to find beautiful looking ones at craft stores these days! 🙂
these are so lovely and they don’t look like they are difficult to make!
Emma x
http://www.thefashion-six.blogspot.co.uk
so cute!!! over the summer i had this obsession with buying vases from ikea, and now I have quite the collection. Might have to add some of these too….
xx Lauren
sayyestobadthings.blogspot.com
Beautiful… Looks like art!
Mandi, you make the best DIYs! They’re so innovative!
I really like the test tube idea! good call 🙂
I love this look! I’m definitely doing this as well
http://ambernaomi.blogspot.nl/
what a cool idea! so unique!
xxoo,
nikki
http://www.dreaminneon.blogspot.com
These kinda remind me of Dr. Seuss. I can’t decide if I adore them or loath them.
this is amazing!
If this is a copy of West Elm’s wire vases (here: http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/c5/24/06/c524066501af2181b5a78963172e321f.jpg ) can you list them as your inspiration?
I definitely want to try this out for my study! Lovely!
I love this! Could you use florar wire instead? Thanks! 🙂
This is way too cool. You’re a genius.