I recently headed out into our woods to forage for greens in order to make wreaths and swags for our doors and lampposts. I was hoping to take a workshop this year on the art of wreath making but with COVID it was pushed to next year. Therefore, a friend and I read up, watched a few videos and then spent a day outside learning, laughing and experimenting with greens!

On our property, we have cedar, yew, pines, spruce, holly berry and boxwood that we cut to use. My list of things to plant for Christmas cuttings grew exponentially this year!

We brought all of our greens back to the porch and organized them into little piles so that we could easily make bundles for the wreaths.

My first wreath attempt was a disaster! It was much too floppy so I took it apart, watched some more videos and started over. From there, things were much improved and I’m very happy with the results! Next year, I will want more color in the form of red berries (winterberry has been added to the list!) as the holly berries are a little too sparse.

Of course, I couldn’t stop myself from making a wreath with little pops of pink. These are snowberries that I planted just this year and I already adore them!

The swags were the easiest of all to make. I just piled greens on top of one another, wrapped floral wire around them and attached a bow. One is on the front lamppost…

and another in back.

The gentleman that we’ve worked with to make plans for landscaping around our house brought over his vintage garland maker and Bryce and I have had a lot of fun making boxwood garland with it! Now that we’ve gotten the hang of it, we have all sorts of ideas for next year!

With all of the restrictions this year due to COVID, it was so refreshing to get outside and spend the day having fun learning a new skill.