Winter Project: A DIY Wreath from Foraged Materials

Today I have a really fun and beautiful project for you: A DIY wreath made with foraged materials. On Saturday, we took a family walk as usual, and I brought clippers for cutting wreath-making supplies. Everything in this wreath was foraged, and there are so many possibilities for how you can design yours, based on what you find around you. The first, step, of course, is took take a walk someplace pretty, where you can do a little snipping of evergreen boughs and interesting, colorful bits to decorate with. Get a good amount, but don’t ever leave anything looking bare when you forage.Breathe in all that beauty, smell it all, and get some exercise. Then, come home and make a wreath.

How to Make A DIY Wreath from Foraged Materials

What You’ll Need

• A wire wreath frame— it can be super-simple, as you will see mine is in the photos below
• Floral wire
• Several boughs of evergreen– I used cyprus
• Two or three types of decorative natural materials– rosehips, berries, dried thistles, etc. Try to look for something colorful!

What to Do:

1. Get your supplies organized, and trim your garnishing items to a stem length of 1- 2 inches. Cut pieces of floral wire into 3-4 inch pieces.2. Start making evergreen bundles. Do this by cutting a small branch into segments, then stacking them, tip on top. Wrap these little bundles in the cut pieces of wire, and twist the ends to tighten. Make about 10 of these bundles, aiming for relative uniformity in shape and size. 3. Attach your bundles to the wire frame. You can do this with short pieces of wire, attaching top and bottom of each bundle to the frame, and you can do this with 8 inch pieces or wire, looped through a few bundles to secure them together– I used both methods, and the key is to keep the evergreen from flopping all over when you pick up the wreath.4. Check to see if the distribution on the bundles are fairly even.  You may need to make another one, or press a fluffy sprig into a bit that is looking a little sparse. Just try to get it fairly consistent.

5. Make a small garland. You do this by making a couple of bundles, and using a long wire to attach the middle of the next bundle to the end of the first one, so they are overlapping. Keep adding little bunches at a time, wrapping the wire in a spiral down the garland as you go. Each new sprig should cover the wire above it. Do this until the circumference of the garland when made into a circle is the right size to cover the inside of your wreath.6. Wrap the garland into the middle of your wreath— it should cover all the twiggy stems of your bunches. Secure this with short lengths of wire to the frame. Trim any stems that are still showing through from your bunches on the wreath. 7. Adorn your wreath. Slip little stems of berries and anything your have found into the wire wrapping the garland part of your wreath. This is a great way to conceal any wire that is showing through. You can work these bits all the way around, or just as an accent, like I did. 8. To finish, you can make a loop of wire to hang your wreath from, if needed. If I were hanging mine, I might consider doing a little trimming in the spots it seems a bit shaggy or uneven.
This is not an issue, since I am using ours on the table, with a big beeswax pillar candle in the middle. We love it!