Make your own evergreen wreath
An evergreen wreath makes a lovely natural winter decoration and its easier than you might think to make your own! Making your own wreath is also a great festive activity to do with children. Part of the fun is going for a walk on a winter’s day and collecting your foliage and berries to use - it feels like a festive treasure hunt! This activity shows a simple way to make a wreath by tying on bunches of foliage to a hoop using gardening wire which makes it easy for children to do.
We’ve included this activity in our Christmas craft activity box and it includes all the materials you need other than your foliage (it also includes our fun felt ball pine cone decoration activity!).
What you will need:
Evergreen stems such as fir, pine, holly or ivy
Gold hoop (provided in our Christmas activity box), a wooden embroidery hoop would also work
Gardening wire (provided in our Christmas activity box)
Scissors
Paper raffia ribbon (provided in our Christmas activity box)
Gold and silver bells (provided in our Christmas activity box) or other small decorations
A basket or bag to collect your evergreens in
What you need to do:
Take your bag or basket and a pair of scissors and go for a walk. Collect some green stems of plants such as fir, pine, holly, ivy, or other greenery you can find. This is such a fun thing to do with younger children - it feels like going on a treasure hunt!
Look for different shaped leaves and different shades of green. Ivy can have pretty berries growing on it, which look good in bunches - but they are poisonous, so don't eat them. Herbs like rosemary can also work well, and will add a lovely smell!
It’s important to know what you're picking and only collect from bushes or trees where there are lots growing, only pick what you are going to use and always make sure you leave plenty behind for the animals, birds and insects. If you can pick items from the ground rather than plucking them from a tree or shrub, that is better. If you do pick anything from a tree or shrub, cut it carefully with your scissors so you don't rip anything out.
When you get home, lay your items out on a surface. Cut your wire into short pieces - enough for tying your pieces of greenery to your wreath. Mine were around 15cm long.
Gather your foliage stems into small bunches with a mixture of different types of greenery and some berries. I used 6 bunches of greenery for this wreath but if your children are young, they might find it easier to work with a larger number of shorter bunches.
Take your golden hoop and tie one of the bunches to the hoop using the wire by wrapping the wire around the stems and the hoop several times and then twisting the wire to secure. Flatten the ends of the wires so that they don’t stick out as otherwise they might scratch your door or table.
Take another bunch of greenery and secure to the hoop in the same way but starting with the stems tucked under the ends of your last bunch. If any of the stems from your first bunch are wobbly, you can now use an extra bit of wire to secure them to the hoop.
Working carefully around the hoop, tie the rest of your bunches of greenery onto your hoop in the same way using the wire.
When you have tied your greenery all round your hoop, you might like to add some decorations! Our Christmas craft activity box includes some silver and gold bells but small baubles, pine cones, more berries or orange stars would also look great! (We’ve written a blog post on how to make dried orange peel stars!).
Space your decorations out and tie them on with your paper ribbon. If you take your ribbon and twizzle the end into a very thin point, you can slide it through the top of one of your bells, then pull it through and tie it to your wreath.
Finally, tie a piece of your ribbon in a loop at the top to hang your wreath up. Or place it on a table or other surface for everyone to see!
Photography: Denise Hope, home educating mum of two boys
This activity was in a previous December Mud & Bloom box and is now part of our Christmas craft activity box which you can purchase here. If you’d like to receive regular nature craft activities like this alongside gardening activities for children, subscribe below to receive a monthly Mud & Bloom box!