Wreath from Scratch

Well, this year I decided to make a homemade wreath. We had all this leftover evergreen from trimming our huge forest tree down to size. I thought, how hard can it be? So I got Sam to make the frame for me. This was probably the most time consuming part. So it's handy to have a husband now, because back in my single days whenever I attempted a project like this- the molding wire part would be my weakness- and then it would look kinda shitty-d. I would bend wire myself- but it would probably end up only resembling a circle, and then in turn, my wreath would only resemble a circle. It's just hard to be patient, Sam is such a perfectionist. Another reason my construction would be bad, I just have no patience and like to get right to the fun part.

So you take a wire hanger and bend it into a circle. You can make two circles. And leave the hook part on the outer circle (you can hang your ribbon on this and it won't even show)



Then you have at it. You simply grab a bunch of similar sized branches and take some wire and wrap it around. (It's really handy to have 2 sets of hands for this)


You just keep doing that. We found that it looks best when you use smaller branches and twist more sections of wire. The fuller, the better. If the branches are too long, they get floppy and loosey-goosey looking.

(PS If you look closely in these two pics, you'll see that hideous purple door I was alluding to earlier)

You just go around and around, and voila! A wreath. At this point, you have to hold it up to a door and admire your progress!

Next add berries, a bow, or pine cones. We chose super tiny pine cones. I would recommend wiring in the berries and pine cones. But since we used super tiny pine cones, and Sam didn't have the patience to wire each little guy in, we just nestled and stuffed them in without securing them. This worked ok for us because we are hanging our wreath inside. When you are finished you can wrap the ribbon around the hook and hang it on top of the door with a tack.

A tree and a wreath for $10! It was fun, quick, and easy to make the wreath. Next year, try making your own!