Christmas Wreath How To

In my last blog about my chevron burlap wreath, I promised I would blog about all my creative endeavors explaining how I did them. Then the school year started. Like all teachers, my schedule got more than a little chaotic. Oh well, I'm getting the opportunity now!

This blog entry will cover how to create a mesh and burlap wreath. I saw this wreath on Pinterest and thought, "Hmmm, I could do that!":

It's a mesh and burlap wreath with accents. For my door color, I wanted to add some more browns and golds. Here's the final product:

Beautiful, huh?! And I promise, SO easy. Really, if I can do it, anyone can! For the supplies, be sure to ALWAYS shop at Hobby Lobby during their 50% off time in the floral department. Seriously, it will make you one happy shopper! Below are my supplies and where I bought them. Really, you can use any assortment of mesh, burlap, ribbon, and embellishments.

Supplies:
1 16" gold tinsel work wreath form
1 roll 21" wide deco mesh, 10 yards (Hobby Lobby)
1 roll lace and burlap ribbon, 15 feet (Hobby Lobby)
1 roll 4" wide polka dot burlap ribbon, 5 yards (Hobby Lobby)
1 roll lace ribbon (Hobby Lobby)
1 "Joy to the World" ornament (Hobby Lobby)
4 Floral berry picks (Hobby Lobby)
Small gold star ornaments (Target)

To create the base, you start with the mesh. Mesh is SUPER easy to work with and forgiving. If you are intimated, I recommend watching a video or two to get an idea. Sometimes seeing it done is all it takes. Here's one good one.

(Forgive the quality of some of these early pictures. I tend to work later in the evening when my daughter is asleep, hence the darker lighting.) :)

I started on the outside circle first. You simply gather your mesh into your hand, take one existing piece of tinsel on the work wreath, and twist it around the mesh. Then create a puff, gather, take the next tinsel, and twist it around to finish the puff. Then continue around the wreath. When you get to the last tinsel tie, cut your mesh with a little left, and tuck it back behind the wreath. The biggest tip I can give here is to make sure your puffs are similar in shape and size. If not, you'll end up with a wreath that isn't symmetrical. Symmetry is something I'm BIG on when it comes to wreaths.

After completing the outside of the wreath, I then moved to the inside. I'm not sure if it made a huge difference, but I went in the opposite direction from the outer circle of the wreath form. Puff your mesh as you go to, again, make sure things are symmetrical. You can here start to work on using the inner puffs to help cover the tinsel. If it doesn't cover it all, don't worry. Your other ribbons and embellishments will help with that. (Be sure when picking out a work wreath or creating your own that you use tinsel that matches the overall color of your wreath.) Complete the same way you completed the outside: twist the last puff into place, cut your mesh with a little left on the end, and tuck into the back of the wreath.

Now that you have your base, you can add ribbon as you want. I started with my widest ribbon- the lace and burlap one. Basically, I started with a piece of tinsel on the outside of the wreath, tied the ribbon to it, and then wove the ribbon around the wreath as I wanted, tying it into tinsel throughout to secure it. There's really no scientific way to do this- just weave it as much or little as you want. Here's how it looked with just the mesh and the lace ribbon:

I then moved on to the other two ribbons, starting with the polka dot. That one I looped through the wreath from the bottom. I basically looked for any holes or gaps in the wreath and brought it through the wreath to fill in that hole. For the lace ribbon, I simply wound it around the wreath. To secure all embellishment ribbons, I tied them to the bottom of the wreath with the tinsel or added twist ties to secure it in place periodically. As you work, make sure to secure everything as much as possible, keeping in mind that gravity will eventually be working against your wreath as it hangs.

Here it is with all the ribbons added. See how the middle wasn't totally symmetrical? I went back and tucked things as needed to make everything more even. After this, it was a matter of adding the berry picks and ornaments. The berry picks are a tad heavy, so I used twist ties to secure them to the wreath form under the mesh and then hot glued them to any ribbon under it hold them in place. The gold stars and "Joy to the World" ornament are all lightweight. I simply hot glued those.

One trick I have learned when adding embellishments on top of a wreath, be it a mesh or burlap wreath, is to glue barely higher than you want. Since everything shifts just slightly after you hang it, it's a good idea to compensate for that.

And there you have it! A beautiful, fluffy, statement wreath! This ultimately took about two hours of my time at most, and around $50. (Most wreaths similar will cost you in the realm of $80, and you can use mesh and only one ribbon type to reduce cost further).

That's it! Have fun and get creative!

Should you decide you don't have the time to create one yourself, hop on over to With Joy Creations. Very cute stuff made by a great lady!