A wreath for the front door

I'm just starting my Christmas decorating, and appropriately starting it with the entry to our house--a wreath for the front door. I started by buying a $6.99 plain 12" wreath at my favorite local grocery store. I also purchased a roll of wired ribbon at HomeGoods for $2.99. Add in the floral wire I bought for $1.49 at the craft store, and I was all set for my $11.47 front door decoration!

The ribbon I bought is cream-colored with gold trim and pinecones on it. Thus, I decided to decorate my wreath with pinecones. Anina over at Twiddletails had pinecones on her wreaths and they are beautiful.On Saturday, while I was planting my daffodils on the coldest day of the year, 1 day before our first snow was expected, I picked up some pinecones in the yard and some off of the tree at the end of our driveway.

So, I gathered my materials, plus some tacky glue, wire cutters, and scissors and I was ready to start. The first thing I did was place the large pinecones around the wreath so I could get the spacing right (I had to leave a gap where the bow would go). Then, I wired each pinecone to the wreath by wrapping wire around the bottom-most part of the pinecone and wrapping that wire around the wreath. I then wrapped a piece of wire around the middle-to-top part of the pinecone, securing it to the wreath.Then, I glued 3 small pinecones together by first gluing 2 together, letting it dry enough so they stayed in place, and then gluing the third pinecone on. While I waited for them to dry I made my bow.

My mom is an expert at making bows with wired ribbon, but I wasn't able to get her help this time, so I consulted the web. I figured Martha must have instructions, but the best I could fine through her site was how to make a rossette bow using satin (non wired) ribbon. I started out this way (but didn't cut the notches).Then, I needed to add the little "knot" in the center. I made a small loop of ribbon and secured it with wire. Then I used more wire to attach it to the bow.The last step was to make the "tails". I cut a piece of ribbon, notched the ends, folded it in half, and wired it to the back of the bow. Voila! For better instructions on wired-ribbon bow making, check out this site.Here's the finished wreath with the little pinecones glued on. I stuck some single ones on randomly too, trying to make it look like they actually grew on the wreath.And here it is hung on our house!