Making wreaths is one of my favorite ways to celebrate each change of seasons. I typically make a wreath for our front door, but this year I thought a rustic dried orange grapevine wreath above the mantel would be beautiful!
I dried a ton of oranges this year to decorate around the house and I love how they look! This wreath makes the oranges the star of the show.
Here’s what I did…
I started with a standard grapevine wreath found at Hobby Lobby. I like how this wreath still had the dried leaf bits attached, but any grapevine wreath would work!
Then, I shopped in my backyard! Look for sticks, twigs, evergreen branches, shrub branches, berries, anything that has an interesting texture. I tried to notice the shape of the sticks, how they might be naturally bending and how I could use that to my advantage.
Once you’ve collected your twigs and bits, affix the branches to the grapevine base. For the most part, I could just jam the sticks in between the grapevine wreath branches and it would hold just fine. When I needed a stem to bend in a certain direction though like the blue berries around the top, I used some green floral wire.
I really like how this has a wild and unruly look with the sticks!
I then created a swag on the one side of the wreath by attaching evergreen branches in opposing directions on that side.
For a little softness, I added baby’s breath wisps on top of the greenery in opposing directions and added a few sprigs to the grapevine wreath just to tie it all together.
For the dried oranges:
Aren’t they so pretty?! I think they look like little gems! To dry, I sliced them about a quarter-inch thick and placed them on wire racks on cookie sheets so the heat would circulate. I baked them at 200 degrees for 3 hours flipping halfway through. I let them cool and sit out for a few days on the wire racks on my counter and they continued to harden a bit more.
I used a glue gun to attach them to the wreath where the opposing ends of the greenery swag met. Glue additional oranges on top of each other to give the layered look.
The finishing touch was this beautiful hand-dyed velvet ribbon found here. The color is “Viola”.
Between the softness of the baby’s breath and ribbon paired with the unruliness of the branches and a pop of color with the oranges, I love how it turned out!
You really can’t go wrong with this wreath because the beauty is in making it look haphazard and wild!
I used the rest of my dried oranges to create a garland for my tree. I love how the translucent oranges illuminate with the twinkling lights!
The colors of the wreath would pair beautifully with this print in the Lily & Val shop!
I hope you enjoy this little wreath tutorial! Happy Holidays, everyone!
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