A Winter Wreath

As Christmas passes and the holiday decorations come down, my heart is always a little sad to say goodbye. When we were in Lincoln, my mom offered me an old, dusty moss/dried flower covered wreath hoping that I could reuse the base wreath. On our way back to Minnesota I came up with a grand plan for the sad wreath: a winter wreath (especially since my only other options are a Christmas wreath and a wreath that my mom made from our wedding corsages which looks a little too much like summer/fall).

What I brought back with us looked like this:

 We pulled off most of the dried flowers, but some hot glue and moss remained. 

The supplies: a wreath form, a bundle of sticks, some white (Christmas) beads I found on sale for $0.39 at Michaels, my trusty hot glue gun, and blue ribbon that is not in the picture. 

 I found the bundle of sticks at Target on clearance for $2.98 (normally priced at $9.99).  I decided to go with store bought sticks (instead of trying to find my own from outside) not only because they were on clearance, but also because I figure that the relative uniformity would help in the overall look and because I have recently experienced a spell of really bad allergies and the last thing I need is to bring more allergens into our house.

I began by breaking the long sticks up into smaller pieces, about as long as the wreath's diameter.

After I had all of the sticks broken up, I took little bundles of 7 or 8 sticks and hot glued the group about 1/4 of the way in on one side of the bundle.

I then flipped the bundle over and attached it to the wreath, holding it in place.  As I moved around the wreath, I was careful not to be too picky about parts of the wreath showing through. I wanted to solidify the pattern and angle of the sticks and if I messed with the bundles too much or tried to add too many sticks at one time, things would start to fall off.

When I finished gluing completely around the wreath, I had a good number of sticks left over which I used to then fill in the gaps and make the wreath look fuller. I also was much more meticulous in how I glued the sticks on because I wanted to try and cover up the hot glue that showed through. (The part in the lower right corner with hot glue showing is where I decided to place the bow and white beads, which was convenient because I was tired of trying to convince the hot glue to cooperate at that point).

With the wreath finished, I then glued on the white beads and began making a bow. I wanted a fuller bow than a simple tied bow, so I folded the ribbon back and forth making 3 loops on either side. Every time I would loop the ribbon, I made sure that the length was always the same (otherwise the bow would have ended up looking less full and more funny).

Once I had my 3 loops, I wired the bow together in the middle and cut the end. 

 

I then created a middle tie by using a small piece of the ribbon, folding it in thirds, and then I wrapped it around the center and glued it in place. 

The finished bow:

*also, this is the closest I could get to the actual blue of the ribbon... different lights affect coloring differently  

Put it all together, and you have a wonderful winter (but not Christmas) wreath!

 A close-up of the bow/bead detail:

The wreath in its proper place:

We previously had stockings hanging beneath the Christmas wreath, so now we have little mittens hanging there instead. My mother-in-law gave them to me. Aren't they cute?

 
It was fun to create a little pizzazz for winter. The total out of pocket cost of the wreath ended up being less than $3.50!