Autumn Berry Wreath

With the bookcase mantel all decorated for fall, I got the itch to spruce up some other areas of the apartment too. I could hardly wait to get home last night to make this wreath before the sun went down.

Thankfully it took less than 15 minutes to make AND I was able to do it all with stuff I already had on hand. Free and fast? I’ll take it!

Grapevine wreaths are my favourite wreaths to work with because they give it such great shape and texture. They are also inexpensive and easy to find at garage sales. I got this one for $3 and I’ve been able to reuse it many times.

The berries were from last fall’s mantel. I think I got them at the dollar store for $1 a stem and it took 3 of them to make the wreath.

What you’ll need:

• grape vine wreath (reused from last fall’s wreath)
• floral berries (reused from last fall’s mantel)
• burlap or burlap ribbon
• hot glue gun
• fishing line or string to hang

Start by snipping off the clusters of berries from the main stem. I found that these ones were just loosely wrapped onto the stem and I could pull them off by hand.

Insert the mini stems of berries into the wreath, working in one direction so that they are all going the same way. I carefully wrapped some of the wire around the vines in the wreath to keep them in place. You could also secure them with a little dab of hot glue if you’d like.

I just learned this little trick on how to cut burlap in a straight line. Pinch a piece of the woven thread where you want to cut. Gently pull on the thread while holding the burlap and it will begin to gather. Keeping pulling until it comes all the way out.

 Now you have a clear line of where to cut.

 I removed a few more strands to create a frayed look.

I used the burlap strips to make a big bow (you could use burlap ribbon too) and hot glue it onto the wreath.

To hang it up, I used clear fishing line to keep it invisible. This is the same method I use with the Christmas wreaths on our dining room windows. It’s strong enough to hold even the heaviest wreaths and can withstand windy weather.

A fun, festival wreath is a great sight to come home too. Especially if the rest of your porch is in such disarray that visitors would think a tornado hit it.

I have yet to dig up all my dead flowers from the summer planters and prep everything for fall mums I’m getting this weekend. In the meantime, I can enjoy this and ignore all the rest.