What a bright and sunny greeting this wreath makes on a door for the harvest season! And nothing could be easier. Because of our abundant wildlife and busy traffic through this door, we used artificial bits from the craft store.
Ideally, it could be made using things right from your garden. Sunflowers, an assortment of grasses and grains and some grapevine are all you need.
SUPPLIES
Grapevine wreath (or enough harvested vines to weave your own)
Grain floral bunch or picks
Berry floral bunch or picks
Sunflower floral stems
Cattails
Artificial butterflies
Floral wire
Heavy duty wire cutter (to cut bunches apart)
INSTRUCTIONS
The amount of flowers you will need depends on how big or small your wreath will be. Here, we used an existing 16″ grapevine wreath for the base, two silk sunflower stems, two artificial bunches each of wheat, goldenrod and raspberries, cattails and 2 artificial butterflies.
Vine wreath form: If you’re not using a premade grapevine wreath form, gather quite a bit of freshly harvested vine. If it is pliable enough, begin with one end and form a circle, the approximate size you want the final wreath to be. Weave the vine in and out as you work around, continually building up to a substantial thickness. If your vines are not pliable, soak them in a bath tub of warm water for a few hours.
1. With heavy duty wire cutters, cut apart the wheat bunches where they are joined together. Begin tucking the individual pieces into the wreath. Working and facing all pieces in the same direction, move around the wreath, covering the front and sides.
3. Position the sunflowers at 5 o’clock, pushing the stems up into the right side of the wreath. Use floral wire to secure in place if necessary. You want them to be secure as they will be the base on which the rest of the spray will be anchored.
4. If your goldenrod and raspberry bunches are large, cut them apart, but if they are small, tuck them in above the sunflowers and arrange so that they intermingle with one another.
5. Cut the cattails apart and position most of them in the spray above the sunflowers, trimming the stems if needed so they don’t stick out below the sunflowers. Reserve a few cattails to position around the wreath amongst the wheat, keeping them facing the same direction as the wheat.
6. Top it off with the artificial butterflies and hang.
