Making My Own Semi-Natural Evergreen Wreaths

Well... Thanksgiving, Black Friday and the Iron Bowl 2011 are all said and done. Can you believe that? Where has the time gone?

We had a great time with the family on Thanksgiving Day. I spent Black Friday shopping from my sofa and avoiding the biters at Walmart. I did venture out late in the afternoon to go to two stores. I definitely did my share of economy stimulating. We also started pulling out the Christmas decorations. I've got the tree(s) up, and today I started working on making homemade wreaths with evergreen branches from my yard. For years I have been telling myself I was going to make my own wreaths, but I've never gotten around to it. So last night I watched some Youtube tutorials and this morning I started hunting and gathering around my property to get enough material to whip up some fresh wreaths. Turns out they are super easy to make, AND my hedges got trimmed as a bonus!

I started out with simple wire wreath forms and a whole bunch of clippings off of the backside of my Leland Cypress tree.



To hide the wires on the wreath form I covered them with a length of fake garland. I wasn't sure if this step was necessary but I did it anyway before I started just in case.



You could stop here if you're into the Charlie Brown Christmas tree look. I decided to keep going. I bundled up a handful of the cypress and wrapped floral wire around the stems to hold them together.



And just repeated that process over and over until I had about 6-7 bunches.



Then I layered the bunches around the wreath on top of one another until it looked semi-circular. I wrapped each bundle with a long continuous length of floral wire to secure them to the form.



And here is the finished product!

You might notice there is twine tied around it in some parts. I gathered up the scraggly branches and forced them into submission with a few pieces of jute rope.



I will go back later and cover those up with some kind of embellishment. I haven't gotten that far yet with my details because I was too busy moving onto other wreaths! Since I only bought two wreath forms, I started looking all around my house for other things to cover in greenery. I have a ton of these fake fir wreaths in my attic that I've accumulated over the years.



They are pretty just as they are, but I'm kind of tired of the whole green wreath/ red bow predictable thing that I've repeated for the past five years. I have gotten into a rut of pulling these straight from the attic and slapping them onto the windows and calling it done. Plus they are so prim and proper looking, and I'm just not in a prim and proper kind of decorating mood right now. I want something sloppy and wild and organic looking so this year I decided to froof one of them up just a lil bit.

And here you go! This is what I came up with. Pretty wild and sloppy, huh?



I started out by adding big bundles of loropetalum clippings (the purple stuff). In between those I stuck bundles of fragrant tea olive branches (the green stuff that looks like olive branches). Those things smell delicious! Then on top of the inner circle I added three long bunches of Arizona Blue Cypress from the trees lining my driveway.

As a side note: I had no idea what types of evergreen trees were growing in my yard. Thanks to the Grumpy Gardener for IDing them for me on his facebook page. I topped it off with some blue and brown damask ribbon and a little burlap bow that I made from scratch and wired onto the wreath.



This sucker is HEAVY now. I hope my suction cup holds up! Not to mention my storm door. It's so big and lush and full that I can barely open the door. I absolutely love it.



It's been transformed from the original, for sure. It also makes my El Cheapo prelit garland that my husband kindly hung above the door for me look pretty chintzy now. I guess I need to get to adding more evergreens on top of it next!



Here is the whole porch. No, I didn't sweep off the leaves.



Check out these cute red and green polka dotted gift boxes I found on sale at Old Time Pottery on Black Friday. They are made from jute, so they are weatherproof...and they light up at night!



I'll be sure to show you guys the rest of the wreaths I made sometime soon, but here is a quick before and after shot of how I transformed the fake frasier fir wreath into something with a lot more impact.



So, there you have it. My foray into semi-evergreen wreath making. My fingers got pricked and my forearms are burning from all the scratches, but my windows and doors are going to look better and sloppier than ever!



I'm sharing this post at these places around the blogworld:
Made By You Monday at Skip To My Lou
Metamorphosis Monday at BNOTP
Home Stories of A to Z
Best DIY Projects of November at Beneath My Heart
Centsational Girls Holiday Craft Link Party
Biblical Homemaking Wreath Party
The Inspired Room Christmas Home Tours