Christine de Beer - effortless floral craftsman
Pull a few strands of your (handmade, of course!) broom bristles to allow your flowers to kick up some magic dust
- 16 September 2026
Gather a bundle of grass to dry...
Neatly snip the grass bundle into two.
Combine the grass into a robust bundle.
And my secret source of the most amazing copper wire... and this really is the fun part... if you make the broom yourself you can add personality to it!
This week in our design note email we talk about the benefits of going through the effort of making your design details yourself.
Every Wednesday morning (Vancouver time), I send out a design note as an early glimpse at the newest Design and a few notes that I picked up creating the Tutorial that might be useful to you.
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For my designs I prefer to unravel wire from a copper pot scrubber. There really is nothing like it. It is a flat copper wire that is exactly the right tone for rustic floral designs, in a way that round wires simply can't mimic.
Scroll down for a link to the scrubbers I use in my design room. You will also find a detailed Tutorial for how I unroll the scrubber into wire there.
Measure and cut a cardboard roll so that it is as long as your grass bundle.
And wrap the copper wire around the cardboard roll.
When you have a nice bundle of wire rolled on to the cardboard...
Hold the wire firmly in place and cut the wire at both ends where the cardboard roll is open.
Place a few strands of wire on your working surface...
Place your bundle of grass on top of that and place the rest of the cut wires on your grass so that the bundle sparkles in copper strands.
Gather the grass bundle...
Combine a few sections of your flat (wink... wink...) copper wire...
Pinch the wires tightly between your fingers...
And wrap the long dangling part of the wires tightly around the grass bundle... while still pinching the other ends in your fingers...
When the bundle is secure you now have enough wire left....
... to twist the wires together to secure the entire bundle.
You can choose, one copper bind... or two. I like the look of two... so... bind the grass bundle again with a second copper wire band.
Neaten up the grass bundle by cutting both ends flat.
Fluff open the grass bundle on one end...
And press a willow rod into the other to give the broom a handle.
Yes, this broom will sweep! If you want to secure it more see the Tutorial below for a twig version that I made a few years ago.
Place a water filled bud vase on a display tray.
Slip the fluffed open part of the broom bristles to stand up over the water filled bud vase.
Book readers for a fun twist on this, why not create a leaf bag over the bud vase? Turn to page 52 for more inspiration. It would be a fun twist!
For more information about my book: The Effortless Floral Craftsman
Slip a gorgeous Passiflora vine with tendrils into the water filled bud vase so that it remains hydrated in deep water...
And twirl the vine up and around the broom handle.
Set the broom aside for about an hour so that the tendrils start to condition in position...
... in time as the vine conditions it continues to grow and interact with the broom handle...
Curl the flat copper wire into ringlet curls to mimic the tendrils...
Have I mentioned that I love copper scrubber wire!?! I mean you can pull it into ringlet curls. See the Tutorial below for detailed instructions.
Pour water into the display tray...
Use a tweezer to pull some of the grass strands out of the bundle to support the pansy flowers...
So that the flowers look like they are a bit scattered...
... like bits of flower bud-dust kicked up by the dancing broom.
And I am adding a few dew drop crystals to add sparkle to my happy dancing and sweeping broom. See the Tutorial below for detail instructions on how I add these.
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