Homemade Festive Door Wreath

I've never put a festive wreath on the door before but have always felt that if ever I was going to have one, it would be one that I had made myself, and I'm quite pleased with how my first attempt has turned out, bearing in mind I have no floristry skills and didn't really know where to start.

But start I did, by collecting an assortment of materials:

A plastic ring for supporting plants (which I used for the base of the structure)

an assortment of ribbons

some baubles

some green garden twine

pine cones and fallen pine branches (gathered from the forest)

rosemary, sage, ivy, eucalyptus and lavender sprigs gathered from the garden

Lavender wouldn't normally present itself in a winter wreath but due to the unseasonal warm spell, I managed to find a few sprigs which were still growing and had flowers on them.

Here's what I did ...

I started off by wrapping some red ribbon around the ring and securing it with some twine.  The next step was to start applying the greenery to the ring, starting with the thickest sprigs first, to give a good base, overlapping them and securing them with more green garden twine.

Then I carried on building up the layers, wrapping in some of the softer leaves such as the ivy and the eucalyptus.  The berries were provided courtesy of the ivy and then I added in the pine cones and the baubles.  It was a case of stepping back every now and again and checking that it looked "balanced".

I'm really happy with how it turned out because the plants are all natural and gathered by myself and not only that, the mixture of rosemary, sage, eucalyptus and lavender provides a lovely fragrant and welcoming entrance to the front of the house.