A front door needs a wreath.
There isn’t a religious or cultural reason why a front door needs a wreath. A front door just needs a wreath. There are religious and cultural reasons for wreaths, but there isn’t one for why a front door needs one.
A front door to a house has either a) nothing in front of it or b) everything in front of it. Which leads to c) a front door that is everything. It doesn’t matter if you have a front door next to a luscious garden or a barren apartment hallway. It is just a plain color door with no personality when it has nothing in front of it. It’s just a brown/black/white door standing as the first thing someone sees about your house.
How boring.
That’s why you need a wreath.
Wreaths are generally an assortment of flowers, leaves, fruits, twigs, or any material sorted into a circle. It can be a decoration on the table or on a wall. Generally associated with Christmas wreathes or decorations, the more commonly known wreath has pine, pinecones, or Christmas bulbs set up on the first Sunday of Advent. Which is connected to the “hanging of the greens” ceremony. Generally, at my house, they were always half haphazardly bought at the grocery store in an “oh shit, I needed to get one of these” kind of way. However, I really like wreaths. They bring character.
They originated with the Ancient Etruscans and were later adopted through Ancient Greece and Rome. Well-known surviving pieces of Etruscan jewelry are gold and other precious metal wreaths. In Ancient Greece and Roman history, the laurel wreath represented achievements and status, while other plants like oak represented wisdom. Zeus, for example, wore an oak wreath.
Even though wreaths are now commonly used with Christmas, having them in the home is nice. I rent a lovely little house with a beautiful garden, but it has a dull entrance. There is a giant white metal door guarding a white door behind it. Nothing about this house’s entrance gives it any unique or original feeling. Nothing about this entrance shows my character. However, there is always an opportunity for something special. With this house, there is a little peg for any wreath that can come along. But why buy a boring, expensive wreath when you can make one? So I decided to do that.
Here’s what you’ll need:
1. A wreath skeleton. Use a used one from a previous Christmas wreath or one at the dollar store. The Dollar Tree is quite famous for theirs, but the 99 Cents store also offers some.
2. A base of some sort. I used rope for my whimsical woodland one. You can also use sticks, ribbons, whatever. Anything that helps you stick your items to the skeleton because it’s hard to do if you use the skeleton as just your base.
3. Flowers or fake flowers. Preferably you should use real ones for decomposition for the environment, but if you don’t have the access or the resources for that, go for fake. The dollar store always has some good ones.
4. Large add-ons. Whether it be clay items you made yourself, or natural resources like pine cones or sticks, have something that dismantles the pattern you make with the wreath. Patterned wreaths are ok, but something that dismantles or has no pattern makes it feel more like an art piece. It focuses on different parts of the wreath and is lovely to look at.
5. Super glue or hot glue. You gotta glue. If you can put it up without glue, you are a master and don’t need my help.
I needed a theme, and like every basic girl before me, I decided to do a whimsical woodland theme. But also, another reason why I went woodsy whimsical was because I already had a surplus of clay mushrooms. Because I love to go through bursts of creative DIY, I decided to make some little mushrooms out of clay. Using air dry clay, you can make a sloppy umbrella which is pretty much a mushroom. It doesn’t have to be a fantastic mushroom because real-life mushrooms aren’t amazing, so why does yours have to be? Painting it with colors similar to Fly Amanita (red mushroom with white spots), I made something that would make people look at that and say, “Oh, you made a mushroom.” However, I had so many mushrooms in my crafting box that I felt the need to use them.
Hence whimsical woodsy wreath.
However, that leads me to where to buy the rest of the crafts. Even though dollar stores are significantly vilified, they are the best place for arts and crafts. Micheals is a beautiful, great place for someone that knows what they’re doing, but if you’re just playing around with an idea, or don’t have a lot of money, go to a dollar store first. Also, you shouldn’t go to Hobby Lobby even if it’s the last place on earth. I went to the Dollar Tree to get what I needed.
I already had the wire skeleton for the wreath. I had decided to repurpose it from an old Christmas wreath I had before. I had already kept the pine needles and pine cones, so the idea of throwing away a metal skeleton for a wreath seemed like a waste.
There might have been a better way to create a base, but I didn’t want to purchase too much into something harmful to the environment. So instead, I decided to go with some natural rope because, with rope, I have something that a) looks woodsy and whimsical and b) would probably compose naturally after some time. Plus, the rope offered an opportunity for something that could be done in a fun pattern allowing more to the wreath.
Going against what I just wrote, I also bought some plastic flowers because I wanted something to help the wreath in spots where I needed help. When in doubt, fake flowers tend to save the project. I didn’t think I would need it, but when there is a project, just buy plastic flowers. It’ll always help you in the end.
I started by grabbing all the materials, only to realize that the wreath was much smaller than I previously remembered. Since I had yet to learn what the plan was anyway, it was no big deal. The quick change was something I could handle. I wrapped the wreath in the rope, tightening off each end and keeping it snug with some hot glue. (NOTE: HOW GLUE DOESN’T NEED TO BE FANCY; IT JUST NEEDS TO WORK).
Then I added saved pine cones and clay mushrooms in the little claws keeping the mushrooms in the back and hot, gluing everything together. It hadn’t filled the area; it looked bare still, so I added some leaves from the fake flowers. Using the idea of breaking the pattern, I created something mismatched yet balanced on the bottom. I didn’t want all the claws filled with mushrooms and pinecones a) because I didn’t have enough and b) it was too rudimentary. Balance and uniform are boring. Chaos is pretty.
But that also just left me with some extra claws. So, since I love making things easy for myself, I decided to close the claws as best as possible and wrap them up with some rope, wrapping them in a sailor knot-looking formation. Next, I sealed what I could with hot glue and added little blue fake flowers to “give it a little spice.”
Sometimes people need to see how easy it is to temporarily change your living situation without spending much money. This DIY was about 6-10 dollars. It used a significant amount of resources I already had at my disposal and others that were consciously bought. If I grow old after seeing it, I can always make another and gift this to a friend. Decoration does not have to be limited to what is inside the house or home. If you have patience and a creative brain, anything is possible.
