The Southern Mercantile Blog

How to Make a Fall Wreath

9/15/2016

It's still warm outside here in the South, but there is a change in the air and we know that fall is on its way! Time to spruce up those front doors and welcome in this pleasant time of the year. I thought it would be fun to help you make a beautiful fall wreath for your home. If you are feeling crafty, then grab your hot glue gun and let's get started!

Here's what you'll need to get started:
-hot glue gun
-scissors
-wire snips
-floral wire
-floral tape
-grapevine wreath
-fall floral picks
-ribbon

All of these supplies will be available at your local craft store. For this wreath, I used two colors of wool grass (two stems of each color), two picks with fall foliage, one pumpkin pick and one gourd pick. You are free to choose whatever fall stems that speak to you! The design concept will be the same, even if you choose something different than what I have used today.

First, you need to wrap your wire with floral tape. This will make your wire much easier to work with. Learning to wrap your wires with floral tape is life-changing, and you will never want to work with naked wire again! Start by wrapping the tape around the top of your wire and then pull the tape as you twist it down the wire.

The tape is stretchy and will stick better if you pull/stretch it as you wrap the wire. Cut your taped wire into two pieces, one to use for your hanger and one to use for your bow.

To make a hanger for the back of your wreath, lay the wire over two fingers, pull down, and twist, creating a loop at the top.

Wrap the straight end of your hanger around a chunk of the grapevine on the back of the wreath, pulling the straight end up, and wrapping it around itself. Make the hanger extra secure with a little dab of hot glue.

Next, you will need to break down your floral picks. By breaking down your picks and stems, and cutting them into smaller pieces, you will make what you have go a lot further. In the end, this will make your project less expensive to make.

I am starting with the long wild grass that was part of my wool grass stems. Start by gluing a piece of the grass down and work your way around the wreath, continuing to glue the sections of grass. *Helpful Hint: Put glue on the end of your stem and then shove it down into the wreath, rather than just gluing to the top. This will make your stems more secure and help hide your glue!

Next, add the wooly tops. Divide your wooly pieces in half, using half for the first layer and half for the second. Glue the wool grass to the top surface of the wreath, alternating colors as you work around it. The first layer will all be glued right along the top.

As you start the second layer of wool grass, start to fill in on the outside and the inside of the wreath base. This will help build out the shape of your wreath and make it look more full.

Now that all the wooly pieces are attached, go back and fill in with the extra foliage that you separated out when you took the stems apart.

You can see how the wreath is really starting to take shape and fill out. The trick to this type of wreath is to build it up, layer by layer. We've laid the foundation, now let's add the fun parts!

Next, add the bow. You will need about 2 1/2 yards of ribbon to make a simple bow like this. Start by leaving a tail. At the top of the tail, make a small loop that will be the center of your bow.

Pinch and twist the remaining ribbon before making your next loop, which will be a little bigger.

Continue making loops, making sure that you twist the ribbon between each loop. You should end up with five loops total, one small one for the center and four larger loops. Find the center of your bow, where it all started. You will have three loops on one side and two on the other. Lay the taped wire across the center of the bow. Tightly pull the wire to the bottom of the bow and twist it on itself.

After securing your bow with the wire, you can fluff up your loops.

Some folks would add the bow at the end, but I like to go ahead and attach it now, so that I can work around it as I fill in with the rest of my fall foliage. I decided to place my bow off center, which meant I needed to move one of the wool grass tops. This is no problem! If you decide you don't like where you've put something, just clip it out, move it, and re-glue it.

To attach the bow, wrap the wire around a chunk of the grapevine and twist it on itself until the bow feels secure.

Fluff your loops up and place your tails where you want them to hang so that you will know where to start placing your next layer.

Next, add the different elements of the deconstructed fall picks. First, I filled in the bare spots around my bow with the leafy greenery.

Next, decide where to place the pumpkin and gourd. I placed one on the top of the bow at the center and one on the bottom.

Fill in with some extra grass. Something like this will be available to you at your local craft store. This grass just helps to make the wreath look a little fuller, while also adding to the wispy-ness.

Now, start to build out the base of the wreath, out from each side of the bow. I added fall leaves to each side.

Next, add in some fall colored paper grass and berry pods, again building out on each side of the bow.

Fluff up your bow one last time and voila! You have a beautiful fall wreath for your door! You can see in this picture how I used all the extra pieces to build out the bottom of the wreath around the bow. The top of the wreath is just the base of wool grass that we started with.

If you are running a little short on time, or if your creative juices are just not flowing, you can buy one of these beautiful wreaths that I've already put together for you!