Rustic Aussie Christmas Wreath

 

I've been a busy beaver with three DIY posts in a row, but with less than a week to go until Christmas I thought I would share this super easy Christmas Wreath tutorial. It's something you can whip up in less than an hour and will look fabulous hanging on your front door when guests arrive for the big day. I decided to give the traditional wreath an "Aussie" twist with the addition of some eucalyptus leaves that not only add colour and texture contrast, but smell really great too.

You will need:

• An old wire coat hanger
• 4 large stems of pine foliage
• 6 small branches of eucalyptus foliage
• 20cm x 120cm piece of hessian
• Cotton thread and needle
• Thin wire - such as florist wire
• Scissors

Method:

1. Bend out your coat hanger into a circle - it doesn't have to be perfect, look at mine!

2. Cut 10 x 5cm pieces of the florist wire and bend each one into a "U" shape. You may need to cut more as you go, but 10 will get the ball rolling.

3. I started by placing all 4 of my pine pieces on top of the coat hanger to see how much overlap I would need before beginning the securing process. Once you have an idea, remove them and start by placing one piece of pine foliage onto your coat hanger and securing it in place using as many of the wire "U" pieces as you need. To hold the wire at the back of the wreath twist the ends like you would a bread tie.

4. Place your next piece of pine foliage onto the hanger with the tip leaves overlapping the stem of the first foliage piece you have already secured. Repeat this process with your two remaining stems of pine.

5. At this stage you can go over your wreath and secure any additional wayward pine foliage that's sticking out. I left mine somewhat "messy" as I was going for a more rustic look.

6. Insert your stems of eucalyptus at regular intervals throughout the wreath. You can add a dob of glue to hold them in place, or some more wire, but I found threading them through the pine foliage was secure enough.

7. Cut your piece of hessian in half length ways, so that you end up with two 10cm x 120cm strips. Take one  hessian strip and thread it through the top of the wreath to hide the coat hanger hook. Secure it in place with a few stitches of cotton thread. If you would prefer to hang the wreath by the coat hanger hook you can simply omit this step.

8. Take your second strip of hessian and tie it into a bow. Secure it to the top of your wreath with a couple of stitches of the cotton thread.

I'm so impressed with how this turned out - a living Christmas wreath with an Aussie twist!