Bring On The Christmas Decorations!

Ah December… I guess it’s time to put up some Christmas decorations!  This year I decided to make my own wreaths so that I could decorate them how I wanted to rather than spending hours upon hours finding the perfect one.  I was so excited I ended up making four!  I kept two for myself, gave one to my sister, a bare one so she could decorate it herself, and one, all decorated, to my sister in law.

First stop was of course Michaels’ for floral picks, ribbon and more green florist wire as I just ran out!  (Have I mentioned how much I love that store?!?)  I went a little overboard with the picks as I wasn’t 100% certain how I wanted to decorate them yet.  Did I want snow covered pine cones?  What about berries?  And what color poinsettias, red or white?  Did I want to use the green wire frame and fresh pine or the twig one?  I couldn’t make a decision in the store so I bought them all!  I figured I’d play around with it and see what I liked best and go with that.  Could also be why I ended up with 4 wreaths…

When I got home I grabbed a trash bag, my trusty little clippers and headed to the biggest pine in our yard.  With the cutest pup keeping me company, I walked around the tree snipping off branches and filling up my bag.

I decided to make the 24” wreath first, go big or go home!  I took a couple of branches, placed them against the frame.  I wrapped the green wire around it several times, making sure to pull it taut.  I added a couple more branches a little further down on the frame, and without cutting the wire from the first group, I wrapped it around several times.  I continued this until I had pine all the way around the frame.

It was at this point I realized I forgot to add my picks!  Since I knew this one would be hanging in between my garage doors, I thought the red poinsettias and blue berries would look nice on it.  I attached these to frame in the same way I attached the pine branches.  The red bow was the finishing touch and up it went!  Little one isn’t sure what to make of it yet!

The other wreath I kept for myself was a twig frame one.  I didn’t want to over decorate this one so I just chose to use a couple of floral picks, no greens.  I attached the picks to these the same way as I attached the pine to the wire frame.  The nice thing about the picks is the stems are wire and I was able to bend them to make it easier to wrap the wire around both the pick and the frame.

With frozen fingers and a red nose, I went inside in search of something to warm me up.  There’s something about the crispness in the air that made me crave peppermint.  Get my peppermint mocha latte recipe and how to here!