A couple of days ago it dawned on me how easy it would be to make my own Christmas Door Wreath. We normally buy a wreath from our local farm shop, but we just haven’t had the time this year to visit the shop to buy our wreath. A friend was over and we just finished eating a tub of chocolates (we didn’t eat the whole tub in one sitting… I promise!) I normally keep tubs for future use, and while I hate throwing away perfectly good stuff, I am trying hard to declutter our home and only keeping what is necessary. I looked at the tub and wondered how I could repurpose the tub for Christmas.
It dawned on me! The lid is a perfect circle and would make an excellent base for a Christmas Wreath. Instead of buying one, I thought it could be fun to have a go at making my own. In all honesty, I didn’t have high hopes… it was bound to look crap! Boy, was I wrong.
I cut around the lid, keeping just the outer ring. This was a little tricky as I had to use a knife to cut the ring away. This plastic was sharp, so if you planning on making this wreath with kids, I’d certainly recommend this job is done by yourself.
I was considering crocheting some decorations for the wreath but I am so behind with my crocheted Christmas Gifts, I figured that adding more to my must-make list was a stupid idea. Instead, I popped out into the garden to see what winter floral delights I could find to put on my wreath. I clipped some thin conifer branches, lengths of common ivy and (randomly) some old sprigs of buddleia. Buddleia isn’t commonly found on Christmas Wreaths but I thought I would see if the inclusion would work, as there was actually something quite pretty about the cutting.
Once back in the house, I heated up our hot glue gun. I really wanted to avoid using hot glue, but after trying to tie the ivy on and push the conifer in I realised that it wasn’t working and I had no wire to hand. So, I had to use the glue gun. I only had to use a small amount of glue to hold a few bigger cutting in place, and then it was easy enough to wrap the ivy around and poke the other cuttings into gaps to bulk up the wreath.
I had lots of pine cones just hanging around and some dehydrated orange slices (I had dehydrated these a few weeks back for a craft and the smell amazing) which I added as a nice extra addition to the wreath. Instead of using a new piece of ribbon, I created the hanging loop from a cutting of the Ivy that I didn’t use. Secured in place by an elastic band that the postman had dropped earlier this week.
I am actually really pleased with my home-made Christmas Wreath, It’s not perfect and I will certainly do a lot of different things next year. But it’s certainly brightened up our front door in a wonderfully festive way. I’m actually kind of proud of myself!
Looking back (and a little more in depth at my garden) When I make next year’s wreath, I shall take clippings of rosemary, olive and holly. I also have a friend with mistletoe growing around a tree in their garden, so I shall ask them for a cutting too. If I don’t have a plastic lid to repurpose I will use twisted willow or birch branches to make the base.
