Making a Holly wreath has become a much simpler and quicker task with the advent of ready made florist foam rings by such companies.
Chose a twelve or fourteen inch diameter ring and soak in a bucket of water for half an hour.Cut some green conifer foliage-cupressus and yew are good.
Trim shoots of the conifer foliage to about 6" long and strip off the lower couple of inches.
Push a double,staggered row of conifer foliage into the outside edge of the florist ring,working your way round till the exterior of the ring is complete. If you have all the foliage at a slight angle, the result is a very pleasing "Catherine Wheel" shape.
Do the same with the inside edge of the ring using , as a contrast, golden conifer foliage.
For the main, flat surface of the wreath ring,the filling is golden and green holly foliage and pine or larch cones.
Spray paint the cones gold. Wrap a strand of heavy guage florist wire around each cone.
Push a group of 3 or 5 cones together and push into the main face of the ring at 12, 3, 6 and 9 (imagine a clock face).Around these groups of cones, push in 3" sprigs of green holly.
In the remaining spaces,push in 3" sprigs of golden holly.
Natural holly berries,can be in short supply some years, but a good tip is to use more redily availible cotoneaster berries.Using fine guage florist wire,bind thes to holly sprigs and push into your wreath at regular intervals. To complete the wreath, simply tie a loop of satin ribbon
around the top of the wreath and hang on your door.
This gives a very natural looking traditional door knocker wreath. You could further decorate with satin bows,silk christmas roses,glass baubles,walnuts,apples...in fact anything that you can wrap florist wire round.
so, go on have fun making your own unique festive home welcome. The only limit is your imagination1
