Made with bark-covered wire, this curled willow-tip wreath is the perfect mix of rustic and wild style for the holiday season. In just 10 easy steps, you can create one yourself using pinecones, dried lotus pods and Hypericum berries as seasonal antiques.
Rikki Snyder
This wreath makes for a fantastic indoor decoration, above a mantel or even about the doorknob of a hutch. The Hypericum berries will last for a few weeks, but once they’re completed you can replace them with something else to maintain the wreath going. Here are instructions from Tracy Goldman of Sabellico’s Florist to create it.
Rikki Snyder
Materials and resources:
1 pack (10 stems) of curly willow hints (fresh, not dried)6 pinecones2 dried lotus pods 2 or 3 stems of Hypericum berriesBark-covered wireThin floral wirePruning shearsScissorsRibbonGreen raffia
Rikki Snyder
1. Trim off all of the willow tips. Identify the small, flexible branches and cut them off the main stem. You’ll be using these to produce the wreath, as they can bend and be shaped without even breaking. You will discard the other bits or store them for another usage.
Rikki Snyder
2. Cut off a piece of bark-covered wire that’s big enough to wrap round the willow tips several times.
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3. Gather a handful of the cut willow hints (five or six) and set them together evenly. Wrap them together closely with the bark wire toward the base of the hints, wrap around several stems for strength.
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Grab another handful of willow hints and repeat the exact same process so that you got two bunches of connected willow tips.
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4. Combine both bunches of willow hints that you just made into one large piece.
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Place the bottoms of the willow tip bunches (in which you tied them together) right next to each other, overlapping them slightly. Tie them together with a different piece of bark wire to create one long piece that has the loose ends of the tips at each end.
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5. Gently bend both ends of the bunches toward each other to create a circular form.
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You can use regular thin floral wire to subtly tie the pieces together.
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6. Play with all the willow suggestions to create a circular form. Do not be afraid to flex the arrangement; the hints are extremely flexible. Tuck pieces of willow hints in any gaps.
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7. Trim off the ends of a few pinecones to a desired length.
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Thread a piece of thin floral wire through the gaps in the pinecones and scatter it around the wreath. Employing this method, you will not be able to observe the wire, and it is much faster and less cluttered than a glue gun.
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8. Insert lotus pods and Hypericum berries as squares. You can gently slide the lotus pod stems right to the wreath without having any wire, if desired. Trim the berries into small pieces and wire them into the wreath for a wonderful burgundy accent.
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Continue this process, playing about with what you think looks best.
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9. Use green raffia to combine a small sprig of berries over the place where you tied the wreath together with wire. This not only covers the area but counterbalances another embellishments.
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10. To create a hanger for the wreath, cut a piece of ribbon to the desired length.
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Wrap it around the wreath and tie it into a knot onto the wreath base. .
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Trim the ends of the ribbon to hang down on the wreath.
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Cut another piece of ribbon and tie it around the wreath in the exact same spot. Tie a knot in which the ends meet. Goldman looped this knot down to the bottom, where the very first ribbon knot was ; you can do the exact same or leave it at the top.
Rikki Snyder
More wreath DIYs:
Long-lasting eucalyptus wreath
Easy traditional holiday wreath