Preparing for the Holidays - Winter Wreath Tutorial

Hi, All! Well, today I have a treat for you! Finally, a, somewhat, Holiday post! And I say “finally” because I LOVE the Holidays! I have quite a schedule planned out for myself with all kinds of great tutorials and I am so excited…I just hope I can keep up with it. Normally I post only 1 video per week, but this schedule has me posting as many as 5 videos in one of those weeks. I’m scared, based on the difficulties I had with this one video, but I’m going to push forward, keep positive, and try to get these awesome videos for you all of ornaments, homemade gifts, and some beauty tutorials, too!

Alright, so, for my first Holiday post and video of this year, I made this really pretty Winter Wreath and I’m showing you how to make it, too!

You can make this wreath for at least half the cost of buying one in the stores, and possibly for even less depending on where you get your supplies (I’m offering options, below), and if you can hit some sales like I did! At Michaels they have a lot of beautiful wreaths and they cost $90 even $100! I spent about $36. Here is a list of the products I used along with pricing (CAD $) and some alternate less expensive options:

MATERIALS I USED (plus alternate options)
Grapevine Wreath – for $6.69 at Michaels. You can use a foam wreath form if you wish, but it will need more pine cones to cover all the foam from showing where this wreath becomes part of the look, plus the foam forms cost $3 more!

Pine Cones (3 Bags) – for $3.99 a bag at Michaels ON SALE. The Sale ends November 17th. These are normally $5.99 a bag. I had to buy mine since I couldn’t find the species I wanted out in nature. You could use the smaller ones or whatever you can find outside if you want to save money and it will still make a beautiful wreath!! I didn't use all the pine cones from the 3 bags I bought. There were some that were too large so I didn't even bother to paint them and, of the ones I did paint, I still had some left over.

Krylon Color Master White Matte Spray Paint – for $4.97 at Walmart.

Faux Cranberries or Holiday Berries – for $11.99 for a large bunch (enough for entire wreath) at Michaels ON SALE. These are normally $23.99 but they had 50% on this particular brand of faux arrangements. This sale also ends November 17th. Michaels also had the small bunches of berries I show in my video as an alternative, for 99¢ each ON SALE. These are normally $1.99, but again, it was 50% off. Sale ends November 17th. If you choose these, I’d get 10 bunches and you can cut them apart in different amounts to add variation in the look.

If you’d like and even more inexpensive option, I also show some dollar store berries in my video. These are $1 per bag and they have small (like in the video), medium, and large sized ones. If you go with these, I’d buy a bag or two of each so that you have some variety in the size of your berries, and glue them in places in various combinations. The dollar store I shopped at was Dollarama, but I’m sure, if you don’t have Dollarama, other dollar store have similar.

I did not price out leaves to go with the smaller bundles of berries, but I did see some at both Michaels and the dollar store.

Glue Stick for Hot Glue Gun – you may already have these if you own a glue gun but I know they are $9.97 for a bag of 100 sticks at Walmart since I just replenished my stock. (Mini Glue Gun sticks).

Hot Glue Gun 

Okay, now that you know what you’re gonna a need and you’ve got options, let’s get to the video. I have additional tips I mentioned in the video for spraying the pines cones just below the video in this post.

HOW I PAINTED MY PINE CONES
Looking to see how I prepared my pine cones for painting? I mentioned in my video that you would be able to find that here and you can, just look below. The reason I’ve opted to have this info here and not in the video is because I wanted to keep things shorter but still offer the info to people if they wanted it. Check it out:

1.)    First I made sure to cover anything I didn’t want touched by the overspray from my spray paint with big plastic sheets. Then I secured a rope from one wall to another so that I had something that looked like a makeshift clothesline. 

2.)    I then took some thread. Doesn’t matter what color, it isn’t part of the aesthetics of the pine cones or wreath

3.)    I cut myself about a 14 inch long piece of thread, then I securely tied a pine cone to one end of the thread like so:

4.)    Leaving a nice long piece that it will hang from.

5.)    Then, I took another pine cone and just wrapped the long end of the thread around it so that it stayed at about midway up the thread and will hang above the first (bottom) pine cone. I was sometimes able to fit 3 pine cones, but you need to still have about 4 inches of thread left to complete Step 6.

6.)    I tied each strand of pine cones, as I finished them, to my rope line. 

7.)    Once I had all my strands of pine cones tied onto my rope line,

then I spray painted them wearing some disposable rubber gloves so that I could lightly handle them while spraying. 

8.)    I let them dry for 1 hour before cutting them off the rope line and removing all the thread. Then I was ready start creating!  

So, folks, that’s it for this merry post! Remember, It can be festive, but it also just adds a bit of color and beauty to your front door, or wherever you choose to hang yours, so hang it with joy throughout the winter!

 

Your Joyful Holiday Blogger,

Sam ♡

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