Pine/Juniper Wreath a la Marketman

I was tempted to bring home a large fresh pine wreath made of blue spruce or douglas fir on the trip back from New York, but pinched myself to get real. :) I remembered I had once made and featured a simple pine wreath on this site a couple of years ago, and decided to make another one this year. A visit to Dimasalang early this morning yielded a small pile of cypress? or are they juniper? (as a reader pointed out in a post a couple of years ago) branches and I made this simple wreath for about PHP100 each…

Start with three bunches of cypress/juniper branches for PHP100. You won’t need all of them, but if you want nice “tips” get three bunches at least… You will need some floral wire or dark string and a sturdy clipper and a rattan or wooden ring as a base.

Simply arrange the branch tips in a circular pattern with all tips going clockwise and try to ensure that the wreath is of a sufficient and uniform thickness. Then reach under and slip off the rattan ring and tie the branches to the ring. If using floral wire, you just have to twist the wire tightly around the branches and only tie at the beginning and the end of the wire… it took me less than ten minutes to do. Just fill gaps and areas with additional cypress greens and hang…

If you want a little color, add a simple ribbon or get fancier if desired. Here, a simple grosgrain ribbon in Christmas red wraps around the entire wreath. The ribbon also helps prevent branches from gaping away from the base ring. See another more anemic version I did a couple of years ago, here. It may be a little late for you guys to make one for this year, but I thought you might want to keep this in mind for next year. So simple, so economical, and oh, I forgot, it SMELLS really, really nice. :)