Hello! Every year we get asked about willow wreaths by people wanting to decorate them up. It is getting harder and harder to source them unfortunately but hey, there are so many fantastic ideas out there we shouldn’t let this slow us down!
To help satisfy the Willow Lovers, I came up with a woodsy wreath made from stuff we have in stock.
I used 12 pine cone “picks”2m of red organza ribbon, a 12 inch lampshade ring (you could use an embroidery hoop too) scissors and a glue gun. The white is a piece of card to protect the table from the glue.
Arrange the picks around the ring to get a sense of the spacing. It took 10 to make this 30cm wreath but I could have crammed two more in. Each pick has two cones, a bunch of berries and some holly leaves wired together.
Apply hot glue to the underside of the pick, along one of the branches and the end. Press it onto the ring and hold it until it dries.
Take another pick, run hot glue along the other branch and press it to the ring, spaced about this much. I alternate between the two branches because I think it looks better than them all being perfectly square on. (this makes more sense once you get your hands on the bits and have a go!)
Keep adding picks like this. If any of the cones fall off, use the hot glue to stick them back onto their branch.
When you get back to the beginning, it is time to bind the whole thing with ribbon. This helps cover up the ring and give a nice background to the whole thing. In the picture the right half is bound and the left not yet done. Use about 1m of ribbon at a time, glueing the end down before beginning. Work around the picks and branches so they can still spread out.
Now it’s time to finish it off with a bow. Only, you don’t actually tie the bow. Cut a length of ribbon, preferably wire edged, with angled ends about 45cm long. Fold in half to find the centre, then loop each half into the middle with a short end sticking out, like above.
Bunch up the folded bottom bits and squirt them with glue. Push these onto the ring and hold until the glue is set. Repeat two or three times, using all the same or a mix of ribbons as you prefer. I did two of this white one (after trying about 12 other ribbons!) and finished it off with one of the red organza. (if you look carefully you will see the remains of some hessian that I tried. FAIL!)
And here it is! I attached a loop of ribbon to the back behind the bow to hang it by.
I like it up this way also.