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Wreaths

Making Wreaths for All Purposes

How to make various types of wreaths with (mostly) found items.

Wreath Materials from Mother Nature

Many materials for wreath-making are right in your own backyard or as near as your local supermarket.

Greens

You can use fresh pine branches or condition the branches in glycerin. Holly can also be used fresh or treated in glycerin and the berries sprayed with clear acrylic to preserve them.

How to Treat Evergreens in Glycerin

This method works best with greens gathered in early fall when the new-growth tips have stiffened. Best varieties to use are boxwood, hemlock, laurel, pine and spruce. Cut branches up to two feet long for conditioning. You can later cut them to shorter lengths for your wreaths.

Don’t wash the branches. Place one cup of glycerin and two cups boiling water into a tall narrow jar or vase. Cover and shake to mix or stir with a long wooden spoon.

Shake the branches out well and wipe the green parts with a cotton ball dipped in pure glycerin. Strip the needles or leaves and bark from the bottom four inches.

With a small sharp knife, cut a cross into the cut end and plunge into the glycerin mixture making sure to cover the exposed wood.

Check the branches daily and you will be able to see the glycerin being taken up into the leaves by a change in color. You can cure in glycerin until the greens turn completely brown (five to seven days) or remove them after two days to retain a greenish tinge.

To complete the cure if you remove them early, hang them upside down in a dark place for four more days.

Nuts and Pinecones

Nuts and pinecones of all type look lovely on wreaths. Gather or buy nuts in their shells, e.g. almonds, brazil nuts, chestnuts, hazelnuts, peanuts, pecans and walnuts.

Make small “packages” of the nuts using a square of nylon stocking. Gather the edges of nylon up around the nuts and twist closed. Secure with a piece of wire, leaving a wire stem that will serve to attach the nut package to your wreath.

Pinecones can be attached whole or cut into “cone flowers” with kitchen scissors or wire cutters. If the scales separate or loosen, you can reconstruct the cone flowers.

Put a half-teaspoon-size dab of plastic wood on a square of wax paper. Press a weak cone flower or individual scales into the plastic wood and let harden. Remove from wax paper. Thread an eight- to ten-inch wire across the cone flower’s center and pull ends to the back of the flower. Twist the ends together. This wire stem is then used to attach the cone flower to the wreath. If you use the plastic wood base method, you can imbed a wire loop into the plastic wood before attaching the “petals”.

For whole cones or cones flowers of more than one layer, the wire can be hidden by snaking it around the bottom layer of scales and twisting as above. The gauge of wire needed depends on the weight of the cones. You want it to be inconspicuous; but you want it to support the cones or cone flower.

Fresh or Dried Fruit

Small fresh or artificial fruit look lovely on a wreath. Small red apples, lemons, limes, sour oranges, kumquats and small brown seckel pears serve nicely. To make them last longer, brush on white shellac or brown varnish (for an antique look).

Run a wire all the way through each fruit. For a della Robbia look, make several groups of two or three around the wreath. Then intersperse a few single fruits between these.

Attach fruit by running the two wires to the back of the wreath and twisting them together.

Wreath Bases

The simplest (and cheapest) wreath base is a wire hanger. A wire hanger wreath will be approximately a foot in diameter, just right for a door.

As well, it comes with its own hook. Place both thumbs on the inside of the hanger and press, working around to form it into a circle.

You can buy a “professional” metal wreath form at a craft store or from your local florist. They are made of four or more circles of heavy wire banded together by more heavy wire.

This gives you a lot of places to attach your wreath elements and allows you to make a nice wide wreath.

Finally, you can have wreath forms made from pegboard. A 36-inch square piece of pegboard would make five wreaths of fourteen-inch diameter (one in each corner and the fifth in the center).

A six-inch diameter circle cut from the center of each circle could be used for other projects like centerpieces or wall plaques.

Before attaching wreath elements by running wire through the pegboard’s holes, be sure to form a wire hanger by running a 12-inch length of heavy wire through two holes near the outer edge. This then becomes the top of your wreath.

Assembling Your Wreath

Most wreaths start with pine branches, though you can also make them using just nuts and cones or just dried flowers.

Be aware that a florist’s wreath frame would take a lot of nuts to fill because of the groove running along its center.

To form a wide flat wreath, you want to stagger and spread the greens.

Cut the greens to length. Wire the first one to the base with stem end at the top and the branch running right along the center of the form. Hide the stem end of the second branch under the greens of the first and angle the branch outward for wiring. Wire the third branch angled to the inside. Repeat this pattern all around the circle.

Wire on your embellishments. Some suggestions follow but I’m sure you already have lots of your own ideas!

Wreath Embellishments

Dried or artificial flowers are nice accents to greens. You can buy them or dry your own.

Pinecones, nuts and pine flowers look especially pretty gilded with a touch of gold spray paint. Just don’t overdo it.

Small plain Christmas ornaments are frequently added to Christmas wreaths.

Remove the cap and hanger from the ornament’s top. Bend two pieces of wire at 90 degree angles and wire them together to form a “T”. Squeeze the T wires together to insert into the ornament. When the top of the T is in, it will pop open again and secure the wire.

Replace the ornament’s cap, snaking the long wire through its center hole.

Jingle bells, miniature gift packages and other embellishments found in the ornament aisle can also add nice touches to a Christmas wreath.

A big bow is a common finishing touch for a wreath. If the wreath is made using a hanger for a base, position the bow at the top where it will hide the hook. If your wreath will hang outdoors, be sure the ribbon is weatherproof.

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