Fall Wreath

I made this cute Fall wreath as a demonstration for a group of ladies.  From start to finish it took me about 5 minutes to put the decorations on the wreath.  To make the bow, well I did that beforehand and it took an additional 10 minutes because I am not great at bows yet.  I also talked with them about shopping the sales at craft stores, especially the holiday items.  You can get those on sale for at least 40% off....even two months before the holiday.   I told them that I like to look at the local thrift store in their craft section to see what wreaths they have. I inspect them to see how they are made, then I will buy one (for about $1.00) and take the decorations off and then start over with my own decorations.  That cuts down on the cost of making the wreaths.

There are many bases for the wreath: styrofoam, floral foam, straw, wire wreath form, grapevine, willow ring, cardboard cut into a circle, twig wreath, a pool noodle (cut to shape), fresh greenery, fake greenery, and more.

For this one, I used a grapevine wreath.  I think these are my favorite for fall because they go so well with the orange, brown, and yellow colors.

When making a wreath, you have the option of using hot glue and keeping that wreath that way for the season, then you can store the whole thing until next year.  The great part about that is you have a ready made wreath waiting for you.  The other option is to buy floral wire and attach all your cute decorations with that instead.  The great part about that is you only have to buy one base wreath you can use all year and just change out the decorations.  Now for me, I'm a little forgetful (okay, a lot!) so I would probably forget where I put the box that contained all the cute decorations for each different season or holiday.  It is less hard for me to forget which plastic storage bin I put a whole wreath in when I can see into them in our garage.  So, I use the hot glue method.  You can make yours whichever way is easiest or most convenient for you.

Materials needed:
grapevine wreath ($1 at thrift store, about $4 at craft store)
decorative berry picks (.75 after holiday discount)
silk leaves (taken from a different wreath I bought)
burlap decorative flowers (originally plain brown - $1.20 for package of 8)
wood saying ($1.50 for package of 6)
wired wide ribbon ($3.00 after holiday discount)
hot glue gun
glue sticks
paint & paintbrush

Before I took the supplies to the activity, I painted the burlap flowers and the wooden saying, and I tied the bow (more on that after the directions). At the activity, I started out by hot gluing the largest piece, or the berry pick, to my wreath.  Then I cover up the stem of the pick with the silk leaves.  After they are glued on, I added the decorative flowers.  Then it was time to add the bow.  I like my bow to be across from the decorations on the wreath.  Many people like the bow to be at the top.  You can do whatever is pleasing to your eyes. After adding the bow, I could have stopped there but decided that including the wooden word "fall" would add a little color.

The last thing to decide is the best way to hang your wreath.  Many people attach their bow to the top, then add additional ribbon they use to hang it.  When I use a grapevine wreath, I usually wrap a piece of ribbon through a small bunch of vines and hang it that way.  This wreath already had a small wire attached to the top.  I threaded my ribbon through that and hung it.

Okay, now to bows.  They are very hard for me.  Thankfully I was able to find a few different tutorials.  You can check YouTube if watching a video works best for you.  Here are links to a few tutorials I found that have helped me.  This one has a list of different bows and shows drawings of step-by-step directions.  This one has photographs of each step.  This one links to a pinterest multiple picture display of step-by-step directions, if you click the link that it goes to, there is just a smaller sized picture, it doesn't take you to a website where the person describes in detail.  I hope one of those can help you!