My Handmade Wreath

This weekend has been near-perfect for me.

It began with a well-deserved lie-in then a wander around our nearest town of Bradford on Avon. It is a pretty place, full of old buildings, lovely coffee shops and great pubs.

The river was finally under control after it burst its banks last week.

Lots of places had their Christmas decorations up, making the shops look even lovelier than usual.

Bradford on Avon has a lot of little shops selling things for the home, the type to just wander around picking up trinkets and design ideas. They even had a shop dedicated to locally made crafts and pieces of art.

We also popped into a vintage fair that was on and I managed to pick up a book I had been wanting to read for a while and these lovely floral plates which were just 20p for the pair!

Today’s post is all about this year’s Christmas wreath and I had a go at making mine from scratch.

I love wreaths on the front door and it is something that I do not just limit to December time! I have had this red and white berry one up over the summer:

And this pastel-coloured egg one up over Easter:

Christmas is simply an excuse to swap to a more festive offering!

Given that this was my first homemade wreath, I went for quite a small one and picked up this artificial wreath from Tesco for less than £1.

I began by removing the packaging and then fluffing out the branches so it looked full and round.

Then, it was all about having a play around! I got a few different baubles, pretty ribbon and hanging signs and experimented with them.

I asked Ian’s Mum to make me some miniature bunting which she very kindly did from pieces of felt.

I love these cute straw decorations from Zara Home:

And I got these at Ikea recently:

I finally decided on a traditional colour-combination of silver, red, white and green and was happy I managed to include some sparkle, a Christmas message and my mini bunting!

And here it is, hung on the front door and ready to welcome people in for a glass of mulled wine!

This design is not permanent and I will change it again next year so it is completely original and personal. I would urge you to have a go at your own wreath too – this cost me about £3 to make.

I spent yesterday hovering, dusting, mopping and tidying ready for the Christmas decorations to be put up and we are about halfway through. The tree is up, Christmas pyjamas are on and mulled wine candles were burning last night.

Because we could only really fit a small Christmas tree in our flat in previous years, we are upgrading to a full-sized tree this year. I felt we didn’t have quite enough lights and decorations for a bigger tree so I have placed an order with one of my favourite online shops, dotcomgiftshop. As soon as that has arrived, I can finish decorating then will share some pictures of my home with you.