Living at the Jersey shore, I couldn’t resist making a Coastal Winter Wreath to enjoy for the holidays and throughout the Winter season. Let’s get started!
Supplies:
FloraCraft Styrofoam wreath form, 18″
Wide burlap ribbon
Floral pins
DecoArt Dazzling Metallics in Oyster
Small paintbrush
Wired jute ribbon
Starfish
Faux pine branches with pinecones
Winter white-colored picks
Aleene’s Max Tacky Adhesive
Pale aqua beads
Scissors
Large garbage bag
Step One: Spread out the large garbage bag to use as a work surface. The bag makes for easy cleanup of any stray foam bits that might come off as you’re wrapping the wreath in the next step.
Step Two: Unroll some of the wide burlap ribbon and attach one end to the back of the wreath using floral pins. I like using floral pins – much easier than glue!
Step Three: Wrap your wreath with the wide burlap ribbon. I wrap on an angle with a slight overlap of the previous band of ribbon. Just eyeball it as you go, and you’ll be fine.
Step Four: When the wreath is completely wrapped, cut off any remaining ribbon and attach the end to the wreath with floral pins. You can either pin the end in the back as you did in Step Two, or attach the pins in the inside of the wreath opening, where it will be covered by your embellishments.
Step Five: Decide on placement of your faux pine branches. I purchased one pine branch that had tiny pinecones attached, and split it in have so I’d have two almost-identical pieces.
After playing around with a few ideas, I decided to have them be at the bottom of the wreath, with the ends of each branch facing in.
Step Six: Decide on placement of the white picks. As these picks had sharp points, I was able to poke them through the burlap ribbon fabric directly into the wreath form. I placed the picks on the outer parts of the pine branches for a pop of bright white color.
Step Seven: Wrap an open-weave, wired jute ribbon around the bottom center of the wreath several times, to both cover up the pine branch stems and to secure the branches as well. Attach with floral pins.
Step Eight: Paint the pinecones to make them appear frosted. This step is optional, but as you can see in the previous photo (where I painted one of the tiny cones) it really makes them pop. I used a very light touch, barely covering the pinecones with a pearl-metallic glaze. (Glazes are more transparent than paints.)
Step Nine: Add a starfish to the bottom center of the wreath, using floral pins to attach. Cover the floral pins with twine rapped around the starfish. I wrapped the twine around the center of the starfish a few different ways (and unwrapped it) until I liked the way it looked.
Step Ten: For a touch of coastal color, add some pale aqua beads to the wreath. I used Max Tacky Adhesive to attach one bead to the center of the twine-wrapped starfish (above), as well as three beads on each of the floral picks. Let dry in place before handling.
And that’s it! Hang your wreath and enjoy!
We’ve lived here at the Jersey shore for 7 years already, yet this is the first Christmas decoration I’ve made with a coastal theme. I love how it turned out!
This wreath will go nicely with my other White Christmas-themed decorations I’ve been working on. Some were unloved decorations that got a white makeover. Others are new creations. You can click on any of the images below if you’d like to see what I did.
Thanks to Jill for inviting me here today! As you already know: Jill is one creative gal and I love her style!
Happy holiday crafting!
~Laura