Growing up in a very small town in NH I remember my mom taking us into the woods behind our home and collecting clippings of greenery, berries, pine cones, ect... anything we thought would make a nice wreath. We'd take everything back and bend some coat hangers, wrap some wire around things and in no time we'd have a wreath.
It sounds really simple and it is. You just have to have patience.
Making your own wreaths and swags are not only fun but can save you money. Mostly I use things I have already and free stuff found in nature. If you do have to buy stuff its usually inexpensive and pennies compared to the expense of buying a premade wreath.
Over the years I have started adapting things a bit and now I use my glue gun to add the accents. Its just faster then wire. Sometimes I even add some "snow" using white paint or the snow paste found in the craft stores. Depends on my mood.
Heres a simple door swag.
Clip a few branchs from a pine tree or a holly bush. Find ones that have several small branches forking off so you dont have to wire as many together to get a nice full look. These should be about 18 inches long but its all in your preference of how big you want your swag. you want them to have a tear drop shape. Full at the top but long and pointy at the bottom
you'll also need:
green floral wire- found at any craft store
glue gun & glue sticks
holiday ribbon a wide ribbon 3" and an accent ribbon about 5/8"
any other accents: pine cones, berries, nuts, cinnimon sticks, etc...the photo i used some prickly ball things i found on the ground. dont know what they're called but they looked great!
First strip the end of the branches bare and create a short handle about 4"-6". Then lay 2 or 3 branches on top of each other overlapping and fan out the bottoms a bit. Wrap with wire to hold together. You may want to go between a few branches as well for stability. You can adjust it a bit once wired together to create a shape you like.
Now your going to add your accents using the glue gun. Lay the swag on a table and just start placing your stuff on top to see what you like before you glue anything. I like tucking mine into and under the branches so they peek out and look like theyve grown that way. one thing to keep in mind is that odd numbers look better. you cant really see but i have 5 of those prickly balls, 3 cin stcks and 9 pieces of ribbon tucked in. *** for the ribbons i cut small strips about 5" and fold in half and glue just the ends together to make a loop. then glue those into the swag.
once you like what you see glue everything down. you may find when you pick up the swag into a hanging position that things shift. Use the glue gun to tack branches out of the way of your accents or add in small clippings to fill in bare areas. Let the glue gun be your friend and manipulate things where you want them to be.
Add a big Bow at the top using your wide ribbon (or you can buy a bow). and then using about 10" of floral wire create a loop on the back for a hanger by folding in half and poking the ends through the branches from the front to the back and twisting to secure. Add glitter or fake snow as desired and then hang up or give as a gift.
Thats it. You've now accomplished making your own swag. Just remember real branches shed so this is a great one for outside the house. Unless you dont mind sweeping up the needles everyday.
To save more money I recycle my ribbons from year to year. At the end of the season I pull the glued ribbons off and tuck any accents I can reuse into a ziplock bag. Put this in with my Holiday decorations and next year I can use them again.
Send me pictures of the wreaths and swags you make this holiday.
Melissa
