Winter Dried flower decorations (Part 2)

Part 2 of using dried flowers for budget Winter decorations. These are a few ideas of how to use what was suggested that you collected in Part 1 and today we are making the hoops needed for Christmas wreaths.

In part 1 we looked at the list things you might need to collect to make Winter decorations - if you missed the list take a look here.

Part 1

I have made the wreath bases with the bendy dogwood sticks that I have been collecting and the photos below are the stages of how you can copy the idea.

The finished base to the wreath circle using bendy dogwood cuttings

The size of your wreath will depend on the longest stick you choose to start with. Any size is possible but you will need to experiment with the sticks you can find.

The circumference of the wreath in the photo is 18 cm or 7 inches and the first stick was 70 cm or 28 inches long.

Bending the stick

Take your first stick and gentle bend it all the way down as the end parts can be a little stiff to work with.

Next twist the thicker end over the thinner end so it stays as a circle when you put it down - 4 twists is usually good enough to stabilise it.

The next bit is the trickiest bit and can be a little fiddly so be patient as you may have to do step one and step two a few times if it unravels.

Choose another bendy stick which can be the same length or a little shorter and gently wedge the thick end of this stick into the middle twist of the first stick. If you need to secure it with a little string or wire you can, but you usually don't need this.

Then twist the rest of the stick around the circle to add structure. I suggest you go with the natural tension of the stick rather than making really short twists.

Don't give up if it all unravels - it will work if you make it smaller and it doesn't matter if the ends stick out, as you can will trim it at the end.

Keep adding sticks until it is stable and secure

Then keep repeating this technique until it feels sturdy and is chunky enough for your liking - it usually takes 6 or 7 sticks.

Trim the ends with sharp secateurs or scissors

Once the hoop is to your liking ,carefully trim off all the ends that stick out.

10cm - 15cm wide hoops

You can make tiny tree decoration sizes of 6 cm wide to much larger ones depending on the size of the sticks you have managed to get hold of. The very large ones will need more sticks to make them stable enough to use.

I use Dogwood for the redness but Hazel and Willow would work too.

I'm finally successfully drying orange slices this year but the lemon slices aren't retaining their colour so I will have to try again.

The fir cones are drying well and I found the bay leaves `i dried last year. the have lost their lustre but are a very pretty shade of green.

Rose hips and citrus slices doing on the wood burner.

Fir cones, bay leaves and Beech twigs

Do get in touch if you have more questions and look out for Part 3 as I will show you how you could decorate the hoop and other ideas of that to do with your dried flowers and foraged decorative bits.