Five steps to make a ‘rustic’ Christmas wreath

Bring something unique and crafty to your home this Christmas with iflorist’s rustic door wreath. Award-winning iflorist have their own extremely talented floral designer and queen of arts and crafts in Hannah Parkinson, who is on hand with five simple tips to spice up your Christmas preparations, and show you how to create your very own door wreath.

Just follow Hannah’s easy and simple step-by-step guide to inject some Christmas craftiness into your preparations for the festive season.

Flowers and foliage:

• A nice sized handful of various conifers
• Holly – ideally with berries on
• Ivy and ivy berries
• Twigs
• Rose hips

Materials:

• Wire wreath frame – 12” in diameter
• Moss
• 1 pair of scissors
• Gloves – holly can be very prickly!
• A reel of 22 gauge wire
• Stub wire

Added extras:

• Plastic green door backing or a bin liner
• Ribbon or raffia
• 3 x pinecones
• 3 x lotus seed heads (or other dried fruits or nuts)
• 9 x dried orange slices

 

Method

Step 1.

Secure the reel wire onto the metal frame.

Take the reel wire and wrap it around the inner and outer rings of the wreath frame. Repeat this 3-4 times until you feel happy that the wire is secure. Knot it in place but do not cut it off, you will need to leave the reel wire attached as this is what is used to bind the moss on to the wreath frame itself.

Step 2.

The next step is to moss your wreath. The moss acts as the wreaths oasis so firstly you need to dampen your moss. This helps to keep the foliage moist and ensures the wreath lasts to its full potential (approx. two weeks). Run the moss under the cold water tap. Drain the moss and then begin to attach clumps of it to the inner and outer rings of the frame, wrapping the reel wire around the moss as you move around the edges of the ring. Keep padding your wreath frame out with clumps until the entire metal frame is covered with moss, on the top and underside of the metal frame.

Hannah’s hint/tip: The tighter you can secure the moss onto the frame, the better. This will ensure that when the foliage is added, the whole wreath will be fastened together firmly.

Step 3.

Keeping the reel wire bobbin attached after fully mossing your wreath frame, start by laying 2 – 4 stems of your chosen foliage’s on top of the mossed wreath frame. Position them and wrap the reel wire around the foliage by passing the bobbin of reel wire through the centre of the wreath frame, over the foliage and back over the outer side of the wreath frame to the centre again, ready for your next bunch, in a ‘over and under’ circular motion, tightly fixing them in position.

Hannah’s hint: Don’t worry if you feel your wreath has become a little dry, before you start adding your foliage, it is the perfect time to give it a little more water, just by using a watering can.

Step 4.

At this stage it is all about layering the foliage and you will start to see your wreath take shape. Be as creative and unique as you like. One at a time add the desired clusters of foliage to the wreath, laying the top of the next cluster of foliage towards the base of the previous one, creating a layered effect and ‘plumping’ up your wreath.

Work your way around the inside and outer inside of the wreath changing the angle of your foliage to cover the desired areas. Maintain the same motion of wrapping your reel wire around the foliage from the centre of the wreath, over the top and around the outside of the wreath, feeding it back through the middle for your next cluster.

Hannah’s hint:  Use ample foliage to really plump up your wreath – giving it a fuller appearance will make sure it does not sit flat against your door.

Step 5.

Now we get to the fun and creative part – decorating your wreath! As this is a rustic wreath, we added dried pine cones from the garden, cinnamon sticks, fragrant orange slices and raffia bows to give it a real, ‘country-chic’ feel.

To prepare your dried fruit and nuts for the wreath, you will need to wire them individually with stub wire. Pass a long stub wire around the bottom of the pine cone, for example, and twist the wire at the back, to fix the wire in place.

Firmly push the excess wire you have left at the back into the wreath frame (which is now completely mossed and foliaged) and pass this wire back and forth into the wreath frame to tightly secure the decoration.

Hannah’s hint: You can add a ribbon to the top of your wreath by simply tying it tightly around the top; this will make it easy to hang on your door.

Finally, add wreath wrap to the back of your wreath if you are concerned it may scratch your door. You can buy green wreath wrap if you wish or alternatively, you can use ripped up bin bags, which is much more ‘savvy’ in terms of cost. Simply peg the wrap to the back of the wreath using mossing pins.

And so your wreath is complete!