Winter Wreath

Video Transcription

At Floral Design Institute, we embrace all the winter holidays. First and most important, perfect greeting for your door. Let me show you how it's done. The base, a pre-made Magnolia wreath. It's put on a frame, and you can see it's already luxurious and beautiful, but to enhance a variety of different preserved materials, fresh sphagnum moss and pliable curly willow.

To begin, I started by ruffling out the leaves, loosening them, making them have a little more depth in between. Now, you need a nice fresh wreath to do that. If it's dried, it'll crack. Don't do that. But if you have a fresh one, just go through and massage it a bit to get it loosened. Then using sphagnum moss, take this and just tuck them between the leaves, adding a little bit of separation all the way around, and you don't need to glue this. It just tucks in and divides, creating depth and texture.

Next, the preserved oak leaves. They have such rich color. Just taking them and cutting them apart to individual clusters. Then using a hot glue gun, flipping them apart just a bit, maybe dividing that some more, and just a little bit of glue. Doesn't take a whole lot. Then sliding that down. Also, right in between the leaves, you get a little different color, little bit more texture. Repeating that all the way around. Sometimes you'll end up with the moss and sometimes you won't.

For more texture, a bit of dry grain. Just cutting it off the stem. Don't need it too long, just maybe four to six inches. Depends on how far you would like the extension. Then again, a bit of glue. Lift and tuck, leaving it outward and radiating around the entire wreath.

Of course, you could stop at any point. It is lovely, but adding willow just adds a little more dynamic movement and makes it so much more fun. Now, this variety was actually called Scarlet Willow. It's a little bit red. I take the shorter, softer side. I'm going to put a pick on it. Then, gluing that directly in, anchoring it, letting the ends come out. Then that second end, giving it a little bit of glue, wrapping it around, letting it cross the wreath, adding movement, and repeating that. Again, just taking the tip, bending it, adding a pick, gluing, determining where you want the ends to extend, adding it. Then coming around, gluing again, inserting it down into the weave, letting it fly up a bit, getting movement depth. A lot of dynamic line, just feeding through all the way around.

The beautiful, earthy brick red is a fun alternative to the bright red and green. This'll last all through the holiday season. Through the winter. It'll dry and be fabulous. You'll find more creative inspiration on the website, Flower School .com. If you have questions, you can reach us through there. Now it's your turn. Find the perfect wreath base. Find your favorite things to enhance. Create. Hang it on your door. Take a photo. Be sure to post it on social media and hash tag Floral Design Institute, that way we all can see what you do, as you do something you love.