A few years ago I spent a month of evenings hunched over my dining room table, painstakingly organizing Christmas ornaments on top of a styrofoam wreath. I’d inherited a box of baubles from my grandmother, most of which had hung on her tree every year for decades, each carrying the silvery patina of years gone by. I had visions of creating a beautiful, colorful, ornament wreath just like the ones I’d seen on Etsy priced into the three and four hundreds.
I started with an 11-inch wreath frame from Michaels and silver acrylic tinsel from the dollar store. I had chosen close to 50 of my grandmother’s ornaments to use in my wreath, as I saved the really special ones to hang on my own tree. I thought I’d have enough, but it soon became clear to me that I would need a lot more to completely fill out the wreath, so I hit the thrift store. With about $40 in materials, I was ready to get started.
Before making any decisions with hot glue, and after consulting Martha Stewart, I laid out my thrifted ornaments to decide the volume I would need to cover the perimeter of the cylinder. Then I wrapped the wreath in the tinsel and hot glued it down as I went. When all was said and done, I used about 45 feet of tinsel and 200 ornaments of all different sizes.
Although it would only realistically take a few days to complete a wreath like this, it took me about 3 weeks to finally decide to glue down all the ornaments. I wanted each of my grandma’s ornaments to stand out amongst the filler, and even though there are a ton pieced together, I can point out each one clearly.
If you’d like to make one of these on your own, here are my tips:
- Wrap a wire to hang the wreath around the wreath frame before you begin to add ornaments.
- Buy more supplies than you think you’ll need. This includes tinsel, ornaments, AND hot glue sticks. If you end up with any unopened supplies, you can always return them.
- Feel free to cheap out on the tinsel, you won’t be seeing that much of it after the ornaments are glued down. The real purpose is for your ornaments to stick to something and to cover any gaps. I used silver, but gold or iridescent tinsel would be super cool too!
- It’s easier to glue the ornaments down if you remove the metal top.
- Don’t be afraid to over-glue. You can always hide the glue with more ornaments.
- I prefer glass ornaments, but the benefits of acrylic ones may outweigh the risk of glass for you, as you won’t have to be as precious with them. I would recommend plastic ornaments to anyone with rambunctious children, pets, or neighbors they share a wall with.
- If you use glass ornaments, don’t hang this wreath on your door!
- The more sizes, colors, and textures, the better!
I think my favorite detail is the dual-toned green drop ornament with the little indent in it. One of the best parts of the wreath is that it’s a conversation piece and an heirloom, and no matter how many times you look at it, you’ll see something new!
Do you have any holiday heirlooms or favorite holiday crafts?
Let me know in the comments!
