What is your favorite part when it comes to Christmas decorating?

Is it decorating the Christmas tree?
Making your own wreath?
Putting together a beautiful table setting?
Making great food for the whole family?

While it is always tempting to get a gorgeous wreath from The White Company or John Lewis, if I have the time, I will make my own.

Making your own wreath is a welcoming break in the frenzy that leads to Christmas.

Whether you need to go to your local garden center, Sunday market or in the forest, time outside focusing on creating something pretty, will be time well-spent.

And like these simple, minimalist wreaths, they don’t have to be big to be beautiful.Now that we live 10 minutes away from a beautiful national forest, I take pleasure in going for a walk, pick up branches and make our own wreath.
So armed with my Orla Kiely secateurs and a pair of gumboots, I went for a walk in the forest over the weekend to cut some branches to make my first wreath of the season.

In less than half an hour, I was delighted with the number of green beauties I managed to find.

So I decided to make my first wreath, using only things I had cut myself as a celebration of what Nature has to offer, rather than using things from my local Florist. As you may have seen on my Instagram stories last Saturday, it was a messy but fairly easy job and I was pleased with the result.

However, between taking Mila to her surfing lessons and our wounded chicken to the vet, I totally forgot how warm our home was.
Since then, my beautiful Forrest wreath has dropped a lot of needles and it is now clear that it will not last till Christmas.

Nevermind…it was a project I enjoyed and drawn from my experience, here are a few useful tips to make your Christmas wreath last longer.

Christmas wreath-making TIP #1:
Once you’ve cut or bought your evergreens, put them in water and store them in a cool place. Evergreens will deteriorate more rapidly in warm temperatures.

Christmas wreath-making TIP #2:
If you hang your wreath indoors, keep it away from direct sunlight or heat sources and mist it on a regular basis (I recycled a plastic spray bottle after thoroughly cleaning it and spray my plants with it regularly).

Christmas wreath-making TIP #3:
Choose evergreens that last a long time.
I cut some Holly in the forest that still looks very fresh and I’m keeping it for my next wreath. However, here is a list of evergreens known to last a long time:

• Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris)
• Cypress (Cupressus)
• Balsam fir (Abies balsamea)
• Fraser fir (A. fraser)
• Noble fir (A. procera)
• White fir (A. concolor)
• Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii)
• Boxwood (Buxus)
• Eucalyptus
• Olive tree
• Laurels
• Thuya

My DIY wreath before it became all dry…

I hope you will find this useful. I would love to hear about your good and bad experiences making a wreath :-)