How to Make Your Own Decorative Wreath

As the festive season is almost upon us, it is time for me to start making my own Christmas decorations.

I always liked the look of wreaths hanging on the front door. Instead of going out and buying an artificial one, I wanted a real one.

The fun part about making a real Christmas wreath is that you can go out and find all the materials you need. Either go for a walk and collect pine cones and holly, or check your own garden.

The rest of the materials can either be found around the house, or purchased rather cheaply.

• Thin wire, such as a wire coat hanger
• Garden wire or string/cotton
• Ribbon in the colour of your choice
• Natural materials such as:

Pine cones, berries, holly, willow branches, Christmas tree clippings, conifer branches, ivy, lavender, rosemary

• Gold and silver spray and/or snow spray

Start by making a ring with your piece of wire or straightened out coat hanger. Decide on how big you would like it to be and join the ends together by twisting.

This will be your base for the wreath.

Using twigs (I used Willow as it is flexible), wrap them around the wire. Keep over lapping as to re enforce the wreath. Use string or gardening wire to secure the twigs, and hide the string or wire with the leaves.

If your wire or string shows through, spray it with gold spray.

Tie a long piece of ribbon at the top of your wreath. This is where it will hang up. You can hide where you have tied it when you add more to the wreath.

As your wreath starts to take shape, start adding more to it. Use leaves and berries for a festive look.

Poke sprigs of lavender and rosemary into the wreath. This will give off a nice smell as visitors come to your door.

If you have a real Christmas tree, use some of the clippings from the branches. This will beef it out and gives off that Christmas smell.

You can make use of last year’s tree (if it’s still out in your garden) by taking some clippings and spraying gold or silver. It should also still have its scent.

Spray your pine cones silver and gold or use a small amount of snow spary and secure them to the wreath using wire or ribbon.

You can then decorate with extra decorations however you like. Try adding Christmas Robins or baubles.

Finish off with a bow at the top. Tie it to a strong twig or piece of wire, or attach using a glue gun.

Spray a fine mist of water over your wreath to keep it fresh.

As soon as you’ve collected your materials, your wreath may take 2 – 3 hours to make.

It can be fiddly to secure the twigs to it. I used brown cotton to blend in. I also used gardening wire, which was easier to tie. I had to spray it with gold spray though, as it was green and noticeable.

Using bendy twigs made it easy to twine around the wire base, and the leaves on the twigs disguised wire and string.

I also sprayed some of the branches with gold and left some natural which complimented the gold pine cones.