How to Reuse Materials Recycled from an Old Christmas Wreath

In my recent article, Recycle Your Christmas Wreath for Future Crafts, I focused only on how to disassemble a Christmas wreath for recycling. Let's take a close look at what materials can be obtained from recycling the Christmas wreath and how to reuse the recycled materials.

Recycled Christmas Decorations:

Christmas Decorations on Christmas wreaths usually consist of a nice bow and some simple pinecone decorations. Some higher priced wreaths have elaborate decorations or multiple bows. These Christmas decorations can be stashed away and recycled next Christmas.

To recycle holiday bows, gently flatten the bow one loop at a time in order to keep the bow fresh during storage. The holiday bow can either be reused on a plain wreath the following year or reused in other Christmas decorations. Ideas for reusing the holiday bow include a bow on the door, lamppost, or tree. You can also attach the holiday bow to a holiday swag or reusing the bow in any other Christmas decoration. The cones can be reused in next year's wreath, made into Christmas ornaments, or fastened to sticks and reused in cemetery boxes.

Recycled Florist Wire:

Recycled florist wire is a very useful material for crafts. If you want to save the recycled florist wire for making a wreath next Christmas, be sure to mark it as such and set it aside. It s also a good idea to mark what size wreath the recycled florist wire came from in order to be able to have enough wire to reassemble the wreath the following Christmas. If you forgot what size wreath you bought, simply measure the diameter of the ring. For detailed instructions on making a wreath from scratch using the recycled wreath materials, you can refer to my article, How to Make a Homemade Christmas Wreath from Scratch. You will need fresh greens, and The things to know about Christmas Greens to Maximize their Performance should help you select the best greens.

Recycled florist Wire is very useful in other Christmas crafts. Your recycled florist wire can be used to attach bows and pinecones to many Christmas decorations. Other Christmas uses include assembling swags, adding Christmas decorations to a plain wreath, wiring pinecones on sticks for homemade cemetery boxes, and holding cemetery boxes together. For more details on how to make the cemetery box, you can refer to "how to make a holiday cemetery box." There are so many uses for recycled florist wire around Christmas that it is always very handy to have a roll of recycled florist wire around.

Florist wire is also very useful in non-Christmas crafts. Some uses of recycled florist wire include making a twig wreath, wiring seasonal decorations to an all-season grapevine wreath craft, and in basically holding random things and crafts together. Florist wire is very useful and can probably be used in almost any other craft.

Recycled metal ring:

The recycled metal ring is very useful in crafts. Metal rings come in handy for future wreaths, but can also be used in other crafts requiring a circular ring. With brute muscle or pliers, the ring can be bent into a heart and used as the frame of a Valentines Day twig wreath or similar craft. The metal ring can also be shaped as desired and used plain in crafts if you dig the simple metal look. You can use the rings to craft Tomato cages. Procure three sticks and fasten a ring to them a foot apart. Or you can make an ivy "tree" frame. Take two or three rings to craft a ball shape, then fasten together with florist wire. Mount this ball atop a one-foot "stem" and let your indoor ivy plant grow up this until it fills the "tree."

The larger rings can be recycled and used not only for making wreaths the following year but also reused for pinecone wreaths and twig wreaths. You can also wrap grapevines or bittersweet around the frames to make a "hollow" grapevine or bittersweet wreath while saving on vine material.

Recycled Christmas greens:

The Christmas greens have multiple uses as well. If only last autumn's leaves insulate the flowerbed, the recycled greens will keep the leaves from blowing away. The needles are very rich in acid, so the branches can be spread around Blueberry bushes or other acid-loving plants. The needles usually dry and fall off the twigs by spring cleanup, and as they decay, they maintain the soil acidity. You can also pile the recycled greens into a box and store them in your camper as they make great kindling for starting campfires. The greens also can be composted.

So rather than discarding your wreath, you can be green and save a lot of money on crafts just by recycling the wreath materials. The recycled materials from wreaths are a gold mine for crafters.