Create Your Own Holiday Wreath

Wreaths are wonderful decorations for your home during the holiday season. Aside from the traditional place of honor on the front door, wreaths can be used as centerpieces on your holiday table and can be hung above your mantle or in other prominent spots in your home. Wreaths can range from the elaborately elegant store-bought wreath to the charmingly sloppy homemade wreath created by your children.

When involving your children in crafts, make sure they have age-appropriate tasks. Preschoolers can use safety scissors and cut out basic shapes, and they can use Elmer's glue to attach their decorations to a wreath base. Only older children should be allowed to use regular scissors and hot glue guns with supervision. Children of all ages can be given the job of searching for pine cones and other natural decorations outside.
Most craft stores sell wreath bases in varying sizes. You can buy bases made of wire, styrofoam, grapevine, evergreens, or twigs. You can also make your own base by bending a wire coat hanger into whatever shape you desire. Wire and styrofoam wreaths should only be used when you're planning on covering the whole wreath, whereas most of the work is done for you with a grapevine, evergreen, or twig wreath base.

The decorations that can be used on a wreath are limited only by your imagination. Children can cut leaves, snowmen, Christmas trees, and snowflakes from construction paper and paste them to a styrofoam base. Pine cones can be hot glued to a wire base, and holly leaves and berries added for decorations. Fake fruit and flowers are popular decorations on wreathes, as are the ubiquitous bows. Some more unconventional decorations include gingerbread or salt dough shapes (snowmen, trees, etc), bells, candy, tin ornaments, photographs, empty thread spools (which can themselves be decorated), large beads, acorns and other nuts, wood shapes (bought at the craft store and painted), and any other item that strikes your fancy. Decorations can be attached with wire, hot glue, paste, staples, or tape.
Here are some basic wreath crafts:

Buy several wood shapes appropriate to the holiday. Craft stores usually sell turkeys, snowmen, leaves, Santas, trees, Menorahs, presents, bells, candy canes, toy soldiers, holly, and so on. Use acrylic or tempera paint to decorate the wood shapes as you like. Hot glue finished shapes on an evergreen wreath. Buy or make a felt or satin bow and wire it to the top or bottom of the wreath.
Find or buy several large pinecones. Use either wire or hot glue to attach the pinecones to a wire wreath. If using hot glue, you may want to wrap the wire wreath in duct tape to give the glue a better surface to adhere to. Hot glue holly leaves and berries (real or fake) to the pinecones. A bow can be wired to the wreath if desired.

Buy a styrofoam wreath, wire staples meant for anchoring fabric, and festively patterned (on both sides) fabric (you can pick several different kinds or just one). Cut 3-4" squares of the fabric with pinking shears. Attach the fabric to the wreath by putting the staple in the middle of the square of fabric. All the edges of the fabric square should point up away from the wreath. Fill in the whole wreath this way and you'll have a lovely cloth wreath.
Children can cut holiday shapes from construction paper. Leaves and snowflakes are fairly easy shapes to cut. You can also use a die-cut machine to make the job easier and to cut more elaborate shapes. Paste the shapes to a wire wreath, overlapping several to give the wreath bulk.

With a little imagination, you can create gorgeous wreaths to decorate your home for the holiday season. The possibilities are endless-you're guaranteed a one-of-a-kind creation.