Seasons > Easter > Activities for the Home > Easter crafts and decorations to make > How to make Easter Wreaths
Twist florist’s wire around the neck of tiny jars. Tie a colorful ribbon around the neck of each jar, if you wish. (I purchased beads in these jars, and saved them to make this wreath. I also used some jars as tiny vases to put fresh flowers at each plate when guests came to eat.)
Fasten bottles on a wreath with the florist’s wire. Fill each jar with flowers. As much as I love the idea of using fresh flowers on this wreath, vases always get scummy when flowers are left in them, and if you don’t wash them out, the next flowers die even faster. So if you don’t want to have to take the bottles off the wreath and wash them every time you put flowers in them, you may want to use silk flowers. (Notice the ends of the wire made to look like tendrils in the right hand photo--just to the left of the red flowers on the left.
My daughter made these letters when she was in elementary school, and I can’t bear to throw them out. So here they embellish an even bigger wreath filled with Easter eggs.
The bow can go at the top of the wreath, or at the bottom. The eggs shown here are fastened on with florist’s wire. The wreath almost looks like the handle of a basket full of eggs, doesn’t it?
Make a simple wreath with just Easter eggs. Glue eggs to a wreath, or fasten them on with florist’s wire. If you use glue, and have to pull an egg off for some reason, or if it gets knocked off, it will end up with a hole where the glue tears some of the egg away, so I recommend wiring them on, even though it is a little more work.
Instead of a wreath, you can hang the eggs from a dowel, hang them in a window, or even hang them from a bare branch that has been painted white. If you hang letters, make sure the letters bump into a wall, or they will spin around, and some of them will end up backwards, and you end up feeling dyslexic. I assure you, there is no way to make them all hang straight--I have driven myself to distraction, trying! If you run 2 threads through, it should keep them straight.
Once you know how to make nonbreakable Easter eggs, there are all kinds of Easter wreaths you can make. These eggs are hung with thread.
Use a wreath filled with Easter eggs as a centerpiece for Easter.
To hang eggs from a thread, use a long needle to pull the thread or fishing wire all the way through each egg. It’s smart to hold the needle up to the egg first, to make sure is longer than the egg. You may need to use pliers to finish pulling the needle through the other side. Fasten the bottom end with a bead and sequin to keep the thread from coming out through the egg.
Basic wreath How-to
There are 2 main ways to fasten items onto a wreath: glue them on with a glue gun, or fasten them on with florist’s wire. Florist’s wire usually comes in white, green, or brown, so choose a color that will blends in. You can poke the ends of the wires back into the wreath, or wrap them around the end of a pencil to form tendrils. Some wreaths are made in such a way that you can just poke flower stems between the strands of the wreath. Once you know how to make a bow, you are only limited by your imagination.
Sometimes it helps to lay the flowers on top of the wreath to arrange them before you commit to permanently gluing them on--that way you don’t end up with all the pink flowers in one spot. Then start poking the flowers into the wreath, or gluing them on with all the stems pointing in the same direction. Keep adding flowers until the whole wreath is filled. (Flowers and wreath were purchased at 100 yen stores.)
Just a few flowers can be as pretty as a whole wreath full. (Flowers and wreath were purchased at 100 yen stores.)
These flowers are a bit unusual--they are made of beads, so they sparkle in the light. (Flowers and wreath were purchased at 100 yen stores.)
Usually this kind of greenery is only used with Christmas wreaths, but I thought it looked a bit like the fake grass in Easter baskets. You can add small crosses to keep the true meaning of Eater in the decorations. These crocheted crosses were fastened on with florist’s wire.
When fastening eggs on to a wreath with wire, you want the wire to show as little as possible. For eggs that are going to stand, make both ends of the wire go into the top pointy end of the egg, and come out the wider bottom end. Twist the wires together for an inch or two to make a “stem” for the egg before fastening it to the wreath. The reason for this is that the bow tends to hide the eggs if they are fastened directly to the wreath.
When fastening eggs onto a wreath on their sides (as in the photos below), make both ends of the wire go into the side of the egg and come out the other side, rather than top to bottom. You want the wire to show as little as possible, so make the two ends go in close together.
How to hang a wreath
Hangers like these allow you to hang a wreath on a door without putting a nail or hook in the door. They are usually sold around Christmas time, since lots of people hang Christmas wreaths. (These cost about 200 yen at Keio D2)
How to hang a wreath without a hook
Even if you can’t find one of the hooks on the left, you can hang a wreath on your door...well actually two wreaths--you have to have one on each side of the door. Drape a ribbon or thread over the top of the door, and fasten a wreath to each end. As long as the two wreaths are about the same weight, they will stay right where you put them. (Of course you don’t hang the wreaths like the photo on the left--I only put them this way so you could see how it works.)
Seasons > Easter > Activities for the Home > Easter crafts and decorations to make > How to make Easter Wreaths
