1. Home
  2. Latest Florist News
  3. News Story

How to Make a Traditional Artificial Wreath

24 Oct 2019

A dried fruit wreath is an easy to make winter wreath that doesn’t require any complex crafting skills but will make a beautiful decorative piece for your home, store or event. If you love that wonderful Christmas smell of cinnamon, cloves and clementine’s then this is the wreath for you.

 

All you need to make this wreath is a premade spruce wreath, a selection of dried fruits, a free afternoon and a bit of creative flair.

 

 

Difficulty:  Easy

Time to Create: 30 minutes

How to Make:

1.     We’re going to start by creating the bow to sit at the bottom of our wreath. Depending on how large you want the bow to be, unravel a section of your ribbon and place it onto a flat surface. Take the loose end of the ribbon and fold it over itself to create your first loop.

 

2.     Take that first loop and fold it over itself again to create the second loop. Do the same to create your third and fourth loop.

3.     Once you have your four loops in place, pinch in the bow in the middle. Take a section of wire and wrap this around the middle of the bow and twist to secure in place.

 

4.     Attach the bow to your wreath using the wire which we used to secure our bow.

 

5.     To attach your pinecones to your wreath, cut a section of wire approximately 12 inches long. Take the wire and slip it between the open scales, make sure to place only 1/4 of the wire around the base. This will leave you 3/4 of the wire to use for attaching the cone to the wreath. Wrap the wire around once or twice and then twist the wire over itself. This is to secure it to your pinecone. The long tail of the wire will be used for attaching your pinecone to the wreath.

 

6.     Secure your pinecones to the wreath one at a time. Place them onto the wreath and using the long tail of the wire pierce through the wreath and pull it through to the back. Wrap the wire around the main wreath frame, this will secure your pinecone to the wreath. Snip away any excess wire and tuck the remained of the wire into the foliage so that it is out of sight.

7.     For the dried orange slices, we chose to secure ours to our wreath using a glue gun, however you could use green wire as an alternative. Take the first slice and add a small spot of glue to the back. Place this onto your wreath and hold for a couple of seconds to help the orange adhere.

 

8.     Take your second orange slice and apply the glue to the back, place this one onto the wreath so that it slightly overlaps the first. Press gently and hold for a few seconds. Repeat this until you have 5 pairs of orange slices positioned neatly in between the pinecones.

9.   To secure the cinnamon sticks to your wreath, cut another 12 inch section of wire. Take two cinnamon sticks and wrap the wire around the middle of them a few times. Once the cinnamon sticks are nice and tight, twist the two ends of the wire together. Leave around ½ of the wire free. If you’d like to disguise the wire, simply take a section of natural twine, wrap around the sticks until the wire is hidden and then finish with a small bow. With the long section of wire left, poke this through the foliage to the back of the wreath and secure, just like we did for the pinecones.

10.   To add the berry clusters, you can either attach them using the green wire or the glue gun. For our wreath we used the glue gun and added a small line of glue along the berry stem. This was then poked into the foliage and held in place for a few seconds whilst the glue started to set.

 

11.   The final touch to this traditional artificial wreath is to add a ribbon to the back to hang. Turn the wreath over and cut a length of ribbon to the desired hanging length. Loop the ribbon around the wreath frame and tie the loose ends into a secure knot.