Blogmas Day 13 | Christmas Wreath

More Christmas DIY for you today in the shape of a lovely Christmas wreath.  For many years we have opted for a plastic wreath, mainly for convenience really.  However, with Blogmas in full swing I thought I would have a go at creating my very own real Christmas wreath and let me tell you, it's so easy to do!

There's a few things you'll need:

• A wreath ring.  I have a wooden one but they also come in metal.  Mine was £4 from Hobbycraft
• Secateurs
• Garden gloves (the Holly is prickly!)
• Thin guage wire.  This is from Hobbycraft
• Foliage of your choosing i.e. holly, ivy, fir branches
• Ribbon for bow

I started by affixing some cedar bush sprigs.  I think this may be known by a different name in the UK, but my Canadian friend who kindly supplied it knew it as cedar.  I simply snipped the branches into smaller sprigs, about 6-8 inches long, bunched them together and then wrapped the wire round the sprigs and the wreath ring itself, making sure it was securely attached.

I then repeated this, working my way round the wreath..

Once I had had completely covered the wreath with the cedar, my creative juices really started flowing and I added a few sprigs of holly, anchoring the stems into the wreath with a small bit of wire or simply by pushing it into the wreath ring.  Next up I added some pretty little flowering ivy-type shrub and finished with some broom.

Now at this point I should probably let you know that all the greenery I used was foraged from around our house.  I pulled on my wellies and, secateurs in hand, went in amongst the trees and started snipping away.  The general rule I used was, if it was still surviving at this time of year, then it would survive once cut until after Christmas.

Here is the completed wreath before I added the bow

For the bow I used some hessian ribbon I picked up the last time I was at Costco - it is a 50 metre reel so I am wrapping ribbon round everything that does or does not move in an attempt to use it up!  I used this pin to create the bow and it was super simple and easy to do.

All in all this project took around 30 minutes start to finish - not too shabby for a novice wreath-maker like myself.  I must admit I really love the finished wreath and think that it will become a new Christmas tradition for me.