The Sad Little Evergreen Wreath

(photo Granstrom Evergreens)

There once was a sad little faux evergreen wreath.  He spent his first days on a boat from China, only to be stacked out in a discount store with all the other sad little evergreen wreaths.  Then, a miracle....he was chosen!   

Then a cruel trick!  He was just stuck on a hook on the front door.  His branches remained squashed flat and he had to hang out with a big floppy red velvet bow that got stuck on top of him.  Poor little guy!

Okay, cheesy story aside (now there's some late night insomnia for ya!), I know I'm guilty of slapping the wreath on the front door with the premade bow.  You?  No?  Come on, really?

I've always thought "wreath beautifying" was a daunting task only for the craftiest of folk.  WRONG!  It's SO EASY!  Literally, 15 minutes with some floral wire and a little branch "fluffing" and you've got a thing of beauty.

Here are some wreaths I put together for last week's workshop.

1) "Fluff" the wreath, meaning separate each piece and try to get it looking as close to natural as possible.  2) I wired on 4 red berry picks and "fluffed" those as well  3) I wired on an Old World Santa Ornament that had been hanging out in my "Don't Really Use These Anymore" Holiday box for awhile.  I could have probably wrapped some ribbon around the top, but literally, this one took me about 5 minutes!

There's that Lime color again.  It's really growing on me!

1)  Again, "fluff" it!  2)  I used these weird little floppy balls I found at Dollar Tree (one of those, "I have no idea what I will do with these, but I have to have them!" moments)  3) I wrapped lime polka dot ribbon & an emerald green bead garland.

Okay, this is NOT a sad little evergreen wreath, but it IS a sad picture frame.  I used a really huge one, first because I happened to have an old picture frame I picked up on clearance at Hobby Lobby for $4 and second, because I put this one together at about 2 am one night and was thinking, "Wow!  Let's see what a wreath on steroids looks like!"

1)  Use any size picture frame with glass and backing removed.  2)  Wrap evergreen garland around the frame, wiring along the way (I used 2 strands of lighted garland)  3) Add embellishments.   I used Dollar Tree Ball ornaments.  I originally wired them on, but the darn things kept popping off, so I went back and hot glued them on.  I wired red & white silk poinsettias in the bottom corners and then added this tree topper just for some extra "pizazz"!

Now that it's complete I've thought of so many things to do with it (Well, I didn't actually KEEP it.  This was one of the items I raffled off.)  You could hang it over a mirror, over a grouping of framed photos, on your front door if you had a really big one, in a window, around your plasma TV, if you made it to hang horizontal instead of vertical.

So....no more sad little wreaths okay?  Only happy wreaths, happy ones....