Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Make your own fresh evergreen wreath

After cutting the lower branches off our Christmas tree, as always, I decided to make a wreath.
This time I am going to attempt a tutorial. Please excuse the terrible lighting in the pictures.
I started with some old dry cleaning hangers. I used two twisted together at the ends and formed into a crude circle. Don't worry too much about this, it is pretty forgiving.
 Next, cut your branches into little pieces of greenery, like this. Again, they don't need to be perfect, because it is easy to disguise.
 Next, I laid a bunch of these sprigs over the hanger going in the same direction laying the green part over the stick part of the last one. Just to hide as much of the wood as you can.
Next, I got some green florist wire at the dollar store. Start wrapping the wire around the branches, attaching them to the hanger wire. Just keep wrapping around and around. It is okay if the greenery is getting held down. We will make it fluffier later.
 Here, in this terrible picture you can see how it looks skinnier after the wire is wrapped around. After you have gone around the circle once, do it again. Lay more branches on top, overlapping as you go, going the same direction each time.
 After going around the wreath, adding sprigs, three times the wreath should be looking pretty thick. Then, take some sprigs and (in the same direction) start shoving them under the wire. This makes it look fuller and more natural. The above picture shows what it looks like after this step.
 Then, I decided to add a different kind of green to give the wreath some depth and added interest. I cut some sprigs off of a Juniper bush in our yard and added those. I really like the two different kinds of greens in the wreath.
 I really like the natural look, but my girls really wanted some shine in it. So I wired some little plastic red balls (dollar store) and wired them right to the wreath.
 Then I hung it up above my beloved mantle.

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