This year to get in the festive spirit my tween daughter and I decided to make homemade wreaths. This was such a fun project and anyone – yes, anyone can make these! My daughter is ten and we absolutely loved sharing this creative space together! I also love that these can be made for different holidays and different themes. The cool part about this holiday craft is it is pretty inexpensive to create. Let me tell you how we did it.
What you will need:
- A foam wreath. I like the Florafoam 16-inch wreath (about $8). We found ours at Wal-Mart but also there are so many varieties on Amazon to choose from.
- Ornaments. I am all about repurposing things already in existence, so I searched at Goodwill and other secondhand stores to find the perfect ones. Also, this made the project incredibly cheap!
- A hot glue gun and plenty of glue sticks. I did run out of glue sticks, so stock up on these.
- Embellishments such as rhinestones, feathers, holiday décor, ribbons, and anything that you want to add!
The first thing you need to purchase is a floral foam wreath. My daughter and I hit up our local Wal-Mart and found 16-inch rings that were perfect for making our wreaths! These cost around $8. We also picked up an extra glue gun that came with about 20 glue sticks for $9. Also, not a bad price!
Next up for me it is important to lay everything out on a clean surface to see what we’ve got to work with. We used our dining room table and took it over for a few days for wreath making. I had a variety of ornaments, some plastic, some glass, some vintage, some newer. What I found is that a lot of secondhand stores will lump ornaments into big bags so it’s a tossup what you’ll get but it’s a lot of fun to get a variety as well. Also, you can find the most beautiful vintage ornaments for so cheap. I highly recommend repurposing if possible.
Steps:
After you have all the supplies ready that you plan to use, now is the fun part. I like to move around my wreath as I’m creating. For me, not staying in one place and working around is easier for my brain. I can visualize where I want the larger ornaments to be placed. If you have ornaments that are larger or more centerpiece style, placement will be important to play around with. I also have been known to take some ornaments off and start over (you may notice the pink Santa suit in the above pic that did not make the final cut).
The above video shows some of my progress as I was moving through this project. I found that I really needed to fill every single space to make it feel complete. You may not be a glitz and glamour maniac like me and find that you want to do a more subtle wreath. Those are awesome too! The fun part about wreath making is now unique each one turns out.
My daughter’s (pictured above) is a simpler version, and her theme was forest animals! How cute is that and now she’ll have it to hang in her room every year.
After you have utilized all the space you would like to add ornaments, I like to then add embellishments. I wanted these to sparkle so I used a lot of rhinestones on the already sparkly ornaments. It gives it a very luxurious look! Another great filler is feathers. Even when you tightly pack the ornaments to the wreath you still may see the green foam ring, so I like to cover those spots.
I have enjoyed making the first wreath so much, I decided to make an additional wreath for my secret Santa! This one was also so much fun and I called it “Disco Santa”. Again, I started with a 16-inch craft foam ring and started to work some magic. I really like this one as the color scheme feels so glamourous.
This is a picture of me and my secret Santa (who happens to be my boss!) She loves rhinestones, glitter and bling and I genuinely think this was such a success for gift giving! She immediately went home and hung it on her office door. Now whenever we’re in zoom meetings I see my lovely wreath hanging in the background.
I hope you’ll try this fun and inexpensive craft. I am already making my 3rd wreath this month because I find it so relaxing and enjoyable. Happy Holidays!
