How I’m Inspired by Travel: Greece

Back in May of 2015, I was fortunate to visit Greece for the first time for a few days, tacked on the front end of another trip. Since it is typically very inexpensive to fly within Europe so we took advantage of the opportunity. We visited the island of Hydra (Idra) first, which is just a short ferry ride from the port of Piraeus in Athens before spending a couple of days seeing the sights in Athens. I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the water, the landscape, and the adorable little towns on the island. There are no motorized vehicles on the small island and only children are allowed bikes so it is a very peaceful place.

First, please be inspired by the beauty of the island…

And of course, the iconic whitewashed buildings and blue doors…

We spent the day lounging in the chairs and having a fresh caught fish lunch at the beach that just a short ferry ride around the island. We opted to walk back to the town of Hydra (Idra) where we were staying.

I began to notice these adorable dried wreaths hanging on or near the doors in the little villages we passed getting back to the main town.

We found out that these were May Day wreaths, hung up on the first of May (also their Labor Day) and left to dry until they are burned for the celebration of St John the Havester on June 24th (You can read more about the tradition at xpaathens.com). Although the wreaths can be purchased, traditionally the flowers where gathered and the wreaths handmade. May Day is traditionally associated as a celebration of spring and of flowers and of rebirth after the long winter months (see www.historyextra.com if you are interested in knowing more about the celebration of May Day). We don’t celebrate May Day anymore in the USA but I remember my mom telling me about May Day celebrations and the May Pole they had at school growing up.

We typically like to incorporate something from our travels into our lives at home (ie. using the spice Tajin from Mexico on our cocktails, making and using the cooking oil and herb mixture we learned at a cooking class in Mexico, using Turkish towels as bath towels, making French press coffee, just to name a few examples). It has been a long time coming but I finally am making a May Day Wreath this year. I purchased a foldable metal wreath form at Pottery Barn Outlet a couple of years ago so I’ll be using it as my form.

You’ll need:

A wreath form
floral wire & wire cutters
shears to trim the flowers
greenery & flowers

Since there are not enough flowers in bloom in my newly planted garden, I will be supplementing the climbing rose trimmings, small purples roses and camellia stems that I clipped from my yard with a couple of spring bouquets that I purchased.

First I laid out my camellia stems around the circumference of my form.

Then I made U shapes with the wire pieces I cut off to attach the stems. I prefer the wire on the roll instead of the long pieces but either work fine. I inserted them up from the back and just twisted them just a couple of times so that I could add more stems or flowers and retwist them instead of using a new piece of wire each time.

U shaped wire “hook” I made to prepare to attach greenery

Insert up from the back and twist a couple of times

The next layer I used were the rose clippings and the purple roses and I attached those in place using the wire, adding more pieces as needed (I ended up using about 24-30 pieces of wire and made them longer as I added more flowers and greenery and the wreath got bigger).

Wreath with addition of rose bush greenery trimmings

Wreath with addition or roses from my yard

I then began to add in the greenery and filler from the purchased bouquets. I ended up trimming the long stems off of the purchased stems to make them easier to attach.

I trimmed the stems as I added the filler stems and greenery to the wreath, attaching with the wire as I went

I continued to place and attach the accent flowers around the wreath, making sure to spread out the color and type of flowers.

Once I was satisfied with the overall look, I held it up to make sure everything was secure and added more wire hooks where I felt like it needed support.

Typically you would want to use water picks in a fresh wreath arrangement to make it last longer but for this one we are wanting it to dry naturally per tradition of the May Day wreath.

Here’s the finished product of my May Day wreath hanging on the front door of my historic 1903 home.

You could also embellish your wreath with ribbon as a nod to the ribbons on the May Pole.

Have you ever made a May Day wreath? I’m anxious to see how it dries and if it will last and be as beautiful as the ones we encountered in Greece toward the end of May.