Creating an alternative Christmas wreath

As you well know by now, I've recently been getting very crafty creating homemade gifts, keepsakes and giveaways. Whilst getting in the Christmas spirit I was contacted by Turtle Mats who asked if I'd like to create my own Christmas wreath. It sounded challenging but I was willing to give it a go. I've never had a Christmas wreath before so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to add one to our Christmas decorations.

Rather than make a common Christmas wreath using greenery, berries, dried orange and other bits and pieces I decided to go a totally different direction and use wool. I thought that this would create a more long-lasting wreath but also it would be something that no one else has. I was sent the wreath frame and a voucher to buy some other items to create the finished article. I ordered four balls of wool, two green, one white and one red. I did have an initial plan as to what I wanted my wreath to look like, but as I was making it, the design developed and changed but I'm happy with my final piece.

I started my wreath by wrapping the green wool around the frame. This was extremely time consuming and monotonous but it created a great base for my other decorations. It probably took around 4 hours to complete whilst watching TV. It was slightly relaxing but quite painful for my hands wrapping the wood around for so long!

When I'd completed the green, I took a break, then got back to it and decided to wrap the red and white around sparingly with bells threaded on to give it a festive feel. This by itself looks great but I wanted to add a little extra to it.

I made some white and red pom poms by hand using this Youtube tutorial and it was very easy. It took a bit of time as I had to wrap it around my hand, tie it up and then give them a haircut. This is the part that took the most time and made the most mess. With each pom pom I ensured the knot around the middle left enough wool to tie it to the wreath.

I was going to try to make some salt dough gingerbread men for this (hence the cookie cutters in the first picture) but after putting the pom poms on, I thought it would look good without them.

So what do you think of my homemade alternative Christmas wreath? Worth the effort?

*Collaboration with Turtle Mats - they provided the wreath frame and voucher to purchase other items but the content is my own.

Christmas has arrived in our home!

Christmas is now just over a week away and I am getting totally excited. This is the first Christmas that will be spent in our first house. We've had to buy all our Christmas decorations in to ensure it could be as festive as possible. I've put little bits of Christmas throughout the downstairs of our house. As you would imagine, there is a lot of gingerbread! I've bought a couple of decorations in the run-up to Christmas but had a few from last year that friends and family bought as presents. The one with our names on was given to us last year by my Mum, it is so cute and such a special, unique decoration. When I pulled them all out to put on the tree, I couldn't believe how much gingerbread there was! I'm so pleased with how my tree came together. Mum was always into white and silver decorations, whereas I have gone all out traditional red, green and gold. I love it, it's so festive!

As well as the Christmas tree I've added festive tea lights holders, gingerbread houses on the fuse box, a cuddly Santa on our phone table, tinsel to the bannister and some twinkly lights in the front window. There are lots of little bits to ensure our house looks festive! I'm so pleased with how everything looks and I don't think I could fit another Christmas themed item in the house, well except stockings and Santa sacks on Christmas day! Do you like our decorations? Have you posted about yours? Link me!