Make This Plastic-Free Wreath for Winter

I recently did a wreath-making workshop with my friend Melissa, the owner and lead floral designer of The Flower Kitchen in Nashville, TN, and it inspired me to make all different kinds of wreaths using greenery from my home instead of buying more plastic decor this holiday season.

Making your own wreath is a beautiful and inexpensive way to brighten up a door and make your space smell exquisite.

Follow these simple steps to make a eucalyptus and dried orange wreath that you can hang indoors to remind you of summer all winter long.

Gather Your Supplies

For this easy DIY project, you'll need the following supplies:

• A wreath form
• Garden pruners
• Floral wire
• Eucalyptus stems
• Dried orange slices

Notes on Wreath Forms

Melissa recommends using a grapevine wreath as your base. They're inexpensive and available at any craft store, and they look attractive enough that you don't have to worry about hiding every square inch of the form. Another cool thing is that you don't really need floral wire to attach your greenery. You can just push the stems down into the little vines—it's nice and easy.

Other options include wire wreath forms and foam rings. You'll just have to take more care to cover these fully with your greenery.

Notes on Eucalyptus Stems

For my wreath, I used silver dollar and seeded eucalyptus stems.

An 18-inch wreath requires about 8 bunches of greenery. You don't have to stick with eucalyptus. Just choose flowers and greenery that preserve well.

Some beautiful greenery options for wreaths include bay laurel, juniper, rosemary, leatherleaf, holly, and dusty miller. Melissa also recommends stems called copper beech, which are preserved to keep their coppery color. They make a striking contrast to all that greenery.

Note: I love to make edible wreaths using greenery from my yard and dried herbs from my garden. If you buy your greenery from a floral shop, I don't advise eating any of it, even edible stems like bay laurel. You can't guarantee that the shop hasn't sprayed your greens with something.

Notes on Dried Orange Slices

You can buy dried orange slices or make your own using naval oranges, blood oranges, mandarins—take your citrus pick!

To dry orange slices without a dehydrator, follow these steps:

• Preheat your oven to 200°F, and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
• Use a mandoline to slice each piece about ¼ inch thick.
• Spread the orange slices out on the parchment paper in a single layer.
• Bake for up to 3 hours, checking each hour to ensure they're not burning. Flip slices over after 90 minutes.
• Once the slices are dried, cool them on the countertop before using them for your wreath.

Prepare Greenery

Trim the stems of your greenery if needed. If stems are too long, cut them into shorter pieces with your pruners by cutting them right above a leaf node, just like you're clipping herbs in your garden.

If you want your greenery to be mixed throughout, then grab a couple different types of stems (maybe a piece of bay laurel and a piece of eucalyptus) and make small bundles with them. Mixing your bundles like this will create more symmetry in the final result.

To make your bundles, strip the leaves from the bottom of each bunch, and wrap it tightly with floral wire. Leave some extra floral wire at the end to attach the greenery to the wreath form if needed.

Try to have at least 8 bundles of greenery, though the exact amount will depend on the size of your wreath. If you don't have enough greenery to go all around and you're working on a grapevine form, you could always cover only half of your wreath and leave the rest bare. I personally really like the earthy look of that.

Construct the Wreath

Unless you made mixed bunches, start with your largest leaves. Attach the stems going all the way around the wreath form in the same direction. You can attach these stems by sticking them into the grapevine form or foam, or by wiring them onto a wire form. If you'd like to hold your stems more securely on a grapevine form, you can just wrap your floral wire around the wreath form every time you lay down a new stem. Think: place a bunch and wrap, place a bunch and wrap, and so on.

If you're using a foam form, I recommend beginning with the inside of the wreath. Make sure to push all the stems into the foam at the same angle.

Once you've placed your larger leaves, come back in with smaller leaves and insert them between each group. Continue around the wreath form until you've made it as full as you like.

If you're covering your entire wreath, the important thing is to have all your stems heading in the same direction. If you're making a little half-moon of greenery, then Melissa recommends keeping one piece of each greenery element to go in the opposite direction at the end. The point where the stems go in different directions will become a nice little focal point where you could add a ribbon and/or the orange slices.

Lift your wreath up and turn it around to inspect for any empty spots.

Add the Dried Orange Slices

Cut pieces of your floral wire that are about 8 inches long. Poke one end of the floral wire through an orange slice, right next to the white membrane. Bend the wire and thread it back through the orange on the other side of the membrane. Pull the two ends of the wire to be the same length and wrap them around the wreath frame so that the orange slice is held on by that little wire bracket.

Repeat for however many orange slices you'd like to add. On one wreath, I used 5 slices total, and I clustered them on one side of the wreath and overlapped the edges of the slices. On another wreath, I spread the slices around the entire wreath.

Enjoy Your Wreath!

Hang your wreath indoors if you want a lovely fragrance boost for winter. You can always place your wreath outdoors; just know that your leaves will get crispy the more sunlight they're exposed to. You definitely want to hang it somewhere it won't get rain or snow. (Here's the great news: If your wreath gets messed up, you can keep the form and start anew!)

These wreaths also make great homemade gifts for friends and loved ones!

I hope this wreath helps to bring more of the garden into your home this winter. Enjoy!