Making Homemade Wreaths

Make simple but beautiful wreaths from almost any dried material you can find in your yard.
and Decorating with
Grape vines and the dried material.
Grapevine wreaths are readily available in craft stores. However, it's a lot more fun and esthetically pleasing to make your own. All you need is access to a grapevine and evergreens. You can also make a herb wreath.


Grapevine hang able Christmas Balls 
Make an dramatic Christmas decoration.
Especially at night
(MOUSE OVER PICTURE FOR EFFECT)

------ Herb Wreath ------

Herb Wreath

Herbs:

 

Sage:

Garden

 

Golden

 

Bergarrten

Winter Savory

Thyme

Rosemary


 

Start with a basic grape vine wreath and add dry and fresh herbs.
Here's a wreath you can enjoy both looking at and using the herbs for your holiday dinners.

The picture on the right illustrates how an area can be overgrown with grapevines. The vines have completely taken over this tall maple tree and the bushes and shrubs surrounding it. The best time to get the vines is in the fall after the leaves have fallen from the vines and trees. The are much easier to find and cut and pull from the trees. The vine will usually have a very thick main trunk coming out of the ground. Then it branches out to form a tangled mess. Cut  the higher part of the vine that's about a quarter to a half inch wide. Then start pulling the vines. You can get a lot of strands to work with in a short period of time.

Cut long lengths so that you can wrap long continuous coils. Leave on the little curly-cues for a nice effect on finished wreaths. 

Pick a long fairly uniformly thick part of the vine to start the main coil. Begin your coil with the thickest end of one vine. Coil it into a circle a little smaller than you want your finished wreath to be. Wrap one entire length, twining the vine in and out around itself. Take thinner vine and begin winding it around the main coil wrapping in and out in the opposite direction. Keep adding vines until the wreath is as thick as you want it. You don't really need any wire to hold the wreath together the vines do the job. However, if  you prefer it, tie a short length of wire around the wreath at intervals to secure vines together.


Wreaths before getting trimmed

A grapevine wreath core is the core of  this Christmas Wreath.		 Using your imagination you can decorate the wreath  by weaving ribbons in and out of the vines  or sticking in dried weeds, pine branches and flowers around the wreath, which adds a nice three dimensional effect. You can also glue stuff to the wreath or put something in the center like a candle etc.

Wreaths can be decorated with a wide variety of materials, limited only by your imagination. The big bonus is that you can reuse the same wreath and decorate it differently. You can start with a basic large wreath for your front door and decorate as a Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter wreath. 
You can also use long strand to decorate an area such as a large wind or fire place mantel. Then you can decorate the vines as you see fit, perhaps with the seasonal theme. The plan here is to grow a potted vine on the grapevines.


Strawberry trim is nice in the kitchen area


This Wreath is an example of the most basic wreath.


a small candle was added to this basic Wreath


A glue gun was used to decorate this fall wreath with Japanese Lanterns


This wreath is wrapped with dried weeds and a pretty blue ribbon


A Welcome would be great on your entrance


Or you can add an ornament