Last year I’d been admiring a lot of beautiful Christmas wreaths in magazines and thought to myself that I’d love to have a go at making one, but I didn’t really know where to start. Then Matt spent an afternoon pruning a bushy tree that was threatening to overwhelm our back shed and inspiration struck. I’ve always loved twisted, vine style wreaths and thought to myself surely they can’t be too hard to make. I decided to try to make one using the twigs and narrow branches that Matt had pruned. If it didn’t work, all I would have lost was a couple of hours of my time.
I used two wire coat hangers to form the base of my wreath by bending them into very rough circular shapes. I made sure that parts of the two circles interlinked and were slightly twisted together. Then I sat myself down outside with a chilled glass of sauvignon blanc and a pile of plant clippings. If you want to make one, make sure the clippings you are using are flexible enough to bend around the wire frame. I simply stripped the leaves off the narrow branches and twigs and gently bent them around the wire frame, poking the ends between twisted areas of the wire. It was a process of trial and error to work out what thickness would work best. I found that using thicker pieces to begin with provided a strong base to then wrap and weave smaller twigs through. Keep in mind that the clippings were still green which meant they were quite flexible. This whole process took a couple of hours.
Once I was happy with the shape of my wreath I let it dry out for a few days. At this stage some of the sticks seemed a little loose so I applied craft glue at a few strategic places to ensure the wreath would hold together. Then I roughly painted parts of the wreath gold and decorated it with bows, fabric flowers, grapes and a pretty bird (that I had kept from a bunch of flowers I’d been given one Christmas). You could decorate it with whatever you want to suit your personal style. I love it’s rustic look and I love that it’s made from a pile of sticks from our backyard!
Check out other people’s creative spaces here.
© 2011, Angela. All rights reserved. On reposting any images contained herein you must provide link to original post. Please don’t repost entire posts without my permission.
The Christmas wreath is as popular today as it was when it was first introduced to the world. People take great pains to make these beautiful Christmas decorations but most people have no idea just how far back the tradition of the wreath really goes. It goes back to Pagan times and the ancient culture of the Persian Empire.