Small fascinators are fun alternatives to flower crowns. There are many different ways that they can be designed. Recently I explored how to make the base with pipe cleaners.

 

Inspired by a piece of jewelry pictured below, which was designed by Maria Elena Headpieces as a hairpiece, I tried different ways to create a base to make a fascinator, emulating  this idea.

After experimenting with different types of wires to create the small crescents, I settled on using pipe cleaners for a few  reasons: they are super flexible, which makes it really easy to mold the fascinator perfectly to the head, they are soft to the touch and easy to manipulate and most importantly, it is a great gluing surface.

Since making the first one a couple of months ago,  I have made some changes to the way I originally made the base and wanted to share this simple and inexpensive way to design this fascinator. And of course, these fascinators can be made in any size and the pipe cleaners can be connected in any configuration.

 

Examples of small flowers, blossoms and textures to use:

*small flowers: pansies, clematis, honeysuckle,  columbine, muscari, hellebore, fritillaria maleagris, lavender, sweetpeas, small cymbidium or phalaenopsis orchids  (partially deconstructed), …

*blossoms: delphinium, eucomis, allium, hyacinths, kangaroo paws, kalanchoe,…

*textures: any kind of berries, sedum, small succulents, small seedpods, small dried mushrooms, acorns,….

 

For this design I used

Supplies

7 pipe cleaners

bullion wire (from Oasis or any other thin wire)

a bit of thin wire (aluminum wire from Oasis or 26 gauge wire or any thin wire you have on hand)

floral adhesive  (from Oasis)

4 hairpins

Botanicals

8 stems of birds nest fern (I bought 4″ plants, the leaves were about 4-6″ long)

blossoms of eucomis and allium christophii,

small clematis

pansies

kent oregano

blueberries

sedum

small pieces of coxcomb

*How to make the base

1. make individual circles with 6 pipe cleaners, by twisting the 2 ends together
2. fold each circle in half

 

3. connect 2 half circles by twisting some bullion wire; then secure another half circle, connecting it in the center of the 2 connected half circles

4. repeat 3

5. cut the last of the pipe cleaners in thirds

6.connect the 2 sets of 3 half circles with the 3 short  pipe cleaners by looping them through the folded pipe cleaners and then twisting them

7. secure 4 small loops of the thin wire (to secure bobby pins on)

*Decorate  the base

Remember to use the cold glue sparingly!

1. cover the pipe cleaners with foliage or petals; I glued leaves of the bird’s nest fern on the pipe cleaner on the bottom right in the image below. The other examples show the pipe cleaners wrapped with wisteria leaves (upper right), hydrangea blossoms (upper left) or calix of carnations (lower left) – any small  flexible leaf or petals will do the trick.

2. I chose to cover the base of this fascinator with bird’s nest fern

3. the two leaves in the center are covered with deconstructed coxcomb, small clematis, blueberries, blossoms of allium christophii and stamens of rhododendron;

the 6 half circles are decorated with blossoms  and buds of eucomis, allium christophii, blueberries, sedum, small pansies, kent oregano and snippets of coxcomb

*Place the fascinator on the head and secure it with 4 bobby pins

Thank you Theresa Bear for the beautiful photos!

 

This design is demonstrated in my Wedding Wearables Tutorail, click here to purchase:

https://learn.francoiseweeks.com/opt-in-wedding-wearables

 

A few more examples

1. fascinator with phalaenopsis (model: Azelle Chang)

the pipe cleaners are covered with the petals of the flowers and then are decorated with the throat of the orchid, blueberries, snippets of grass and blueberries; the 3 short pieces of pipe cleaners in the center are covered with an orchid

 

2. fascinator with pansies (photos: Ted Mishima; model: Azelle Chang)

the pipe cleaners are covered with the birds nest fern and are decorated with pansies, blueberries, blossoms of allium christofii and ripsalis

 

3. larger fascinator (model: Sarah Jane Dillon)

15 pipe cleaners were used (row 1 with 1 pipe cleaner – row 2: 2 …row 5 : 5 pipe cleaners)

the pipe cleaners were covered with birds nest ferns and decorated randomly with honeysuckle, digitalis, mini phalaenopsis, yarrow, dichlostemma, blackberries, blueberries, elderberries, succulents, sedum