Beautiful Natural Wreath for the Holidays

If you are like me, I sometimes grow tired of seeing the same type of Thanksgiving and Christmas decor going up every year. Making wreaths and other holiday gifts is a popular DIY trend. So, here is a nice project I am sharing with all you nature-lovers!

This is an easy to make natural wreath and matching arrangement that I made last year, out of mostly natural materials. I was inspired to decorate for the holidays, but didn’t want to put up the usual store-bought arrangements. I also wanted to deviate from the standard colors of traditional pieces.

Fortunately I live in an area in Idaho, where there are a lot of wide open desert areas where I found some beautiful and unique materials to use.This was a low cost project that allowed me to decorate my fireplace mantel, wall and living room.

As with most home decorating projects, the key to success here is the simplicity of what I did. Just start with a basic plan, and see how nice it can turn out.

My own personal tool that made this happen was my handy glue gun and the use of instantly bonding all-temperature glue. The only small expense for this project was a basic wreath structure, made of natural vines, which I purchased for a few dollars at the craft store, followed by a trip to the dollar store for the colorful ribbon and fake trees.

I wanted my project to reflect how much I love the natural grasses and sage brush of the Idaho desert, and I was really pleased at the final result. After a short trip in the car to gather my materials, I simply laid everything out in front of me on the table and heated up the glue gun.

Next I grabbed small portions of the sagebrush, glued the ends and fitted them at an angle into the wreath. I simply worked my way around the circumference of it until I reached the end. I contemplated adding more things, like pine cones, but the simple design (and how it looked against the wall) inspired me to be careful not to add too much.

I added just a couple of pine cones to the wreath, and inserted just a small amount dried flowers, along with some of the white branches of Rabbit Brush. My favorite part of doing this project was my idea to use the dried pods to make the cross that I inserted into the center area. It was completely natural and original too!

After placing the wreath where I wanted it, I used the two blue tree shapes on each side to tie the design together.

I lined the living room mantel with pine cones, the crystal ball and a few embellishments of the sparkling blue leaves and balls that matched my primary color and---------- viola! Project complete. I got the idea for using the crystal ball as a centerpiece from looking at the gazing globes I use in my garden decor.

My next idea was to add something on each end of the fireplace that could frame the sides. I found some nice large baskets (but you could use any large container) to house my long stemmed pieces of material. These included, sagebrush, rabbit brush, two types of flower pods and some red dried pods that I have no idea what they were!

By the way--the shorter, white, dried pods were from Yellow Sticky Daisies and the larger ones are the dried pods of Wild Foxglove. Beautiful!!!

A glossy emerald green ribbon made a nicely complementary color to finalize my two large baskets, which I placed on each side of the fireplace.

My final project was completed in just under two hours and I had decor that I could enjoy for the Thanksgiving, as well as the Christmas holidays. You can use this design idea and come up with your own pieces, but just varying the type of materials you use. Make it personal, choose your own colors and make it your own!