Have you ever made your own wreath with fresh evergreens? When I was a child we had friends that lived in a converted barn. Every year they would invite friends over for a wreath making party. Everyone brought various greens and other items to decorate the wreathes with. There would be special activities for all the children such as sticking cloves into oranges. At the end of the day we’d all gather in their home for hot cider and cookies. It was one of my favorite activities leading up to Christmas.
I had great aspirations of making several wreaths and an evergreen garland to decorate our deck. We have been extremely busy the last few weeks and the past two weekends we were out of state helping my mother move. Usually I have my blog written a week in advance but somehow the making of the garland kept getting put off. I had a romantic idea of heading out to the woods on a snowy afternoon, collecting the evergreens and making a beautiful garland to adorn our deck. Remember the deck we repainted this summer? Not exactly a small deck! I guess I wasn’t thinking just how long it would take me to make a 50 foot garland! All of a sudden I realized I was running out of time and if I didn’t get out there today and cut the greens there would be no garland and no blog post.
So outside I went today and it was blustery and cold and yes even a few flurries. First I collected numerous branches from various evergreens on our property. I then cut the greens into various lengths from 6-12 inches.
Use heavy green wire or rope as a base, much like you can use a metal frame for a wreath. If you use a light colored rope you will have to make sure you cover every inch of it so the rope isn’t showing through!
Take a handful of your greens and make sure they are all facing the same way. I found it worked well if you wrapped the ends together before attaching to the rope.
Using some small gauge wire wrap the greens to your larger wire or rope.
Take another handful of greens and repeat the process overlapping the ends of the previous bunch of greenery. Keep repeating until your garland is as long as you want it to be. When you come to the end you just place the last bunch of greenery going in the opposite direction! If you want to get fancy you can add ribbons or other decorations. I kept mine plain. After working outside for what seemed like hours my hands were cold and covered with sap! I had about five feet of garland made!
Just enough to wrap around the post supporting the deck! I do like the way it looks so when the sun comes back out I am going to go outside and finish this project. Maybe I’ll show you my completed garland next week!
Handmade garlands are a bit heavier than artificial garlands so plan accordingly when you are hanging it. I plan to use some very large twist ties to secure it to our deck.
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Nancy on the Home Front 