How to Make a Wreath

A grapevine wreath is the easiest base to start on. The twigs grab hold of wire and glue, and the bare parts still look like they belong, so you do not have to cover every inch of it.

Set the wreath flat on the table and put everything else within reach: a roll of wired ribbon, two or three greenery stems, a pipe cleaner, wire cutters, scissors and a hot glue gun. Working flat and face up means you always see what the front will look like.

Two greenery stems is genuinely enough for an 18-inch wreath once you break them down, which happens in step 9.

Fold the end of the ribbon in half lengthwise, then cut at an angle from the folded edge out to the open corner. Open it back up and you have a clean V.

It takes five seconds and it is most of the difference between a bow that looks homemade and one that looks bought. A blunt square end reads as unfinished from across the room.

Leave plenty of ribbon below the cut, at least 12 inches. That length becomes the tail that hangs down the side of the finished wreath.

Make one small loop in the middle of the ribbon and pinch it closed between your thumb and finger. Everything else builds off this loop, so keep it tight and keep it under four inches across.

Before you go further, work out which face of your ribbon is the front. Most wired ribbon has an obvious right side. On a burlap-style ribbon like this one you can tell from the stitching along the edge.

Hold the centre loop so that good side is looking up at you. That is the orientation you keep for the rest of the bow.

The whole bow is three moves repeated. Twist the ribbon at the pinch point so the good side comes back up. Pull out a loop to one side. Pinch it back into the centre. Then twist again, loop to the other side, pinch.

The twist is the move people skip, and skipping it is exactly why one half of a homemade bow ends up showing the back of the ribbon while the other half looks fine.

Alternate sides every single time. If you do two loops on the right before going left, the bow grows lopsided and no amount of fluffing fixes it later.

Start small in the middle and make each pair of loops a little wider than the last. That is what turns a flat stack of ribbon into something that reads like a layered flower.

Eight to ten loops a side is plenty for a wreath this size. Keep squeezing the centre tight in your fist as it grows. When your hand starts to cramp, you have enough.

If you want to go deeper on the bow on its own, there is a full walkthrough at how to make a bow for a wreath, including how to measure the loops so both sides match.

Dovetail the loose end the same way you did the first one, so both tails match.

Then, still gripping the bow, wrap a pipe cleaner around the pinched centre and twist it once behind the bow to lock the whole stack together. A length of floral wire does the same job if you have it.

Leave both ends of the pipe cleaner long and sticking out. Those ends are what tie the bow onto the wreath in the next step, so resist the urge to tidy them up now.

Decide where the bow sits before you attach anything. Off to one side, roughly where four or eight o'clock would be, looks better than dead centre on a round wreath.

Feed both pipe cleaner ends straight through the twigs and out the back. Front to back matters. If you loop the wire around the outside of the wreath instead, you see it every time the door opens.

Reach behind, pull both ends tight, cross them over each other, twist them down and push the sharp ends into the grapevine so nothing scratches the door.

This is the step that decides whether the wreath looks good, and it takes longer than you expect. A bow straight off the hand looks flat and a bit sad. Fluffed properly it looks full.

Take each loop in turn and pull it out and away from the centre. Work around the bow in order rather than grabbing at random, or you will keep missing the same loops.

Push some loops forward and some back so the bow has depth rather than sitting in one plane. If the pipe cleaner is tight you can be genuinely rough with it. Keep going until there are no flat spots.

Pull each greenery stem apart at the joints so one long spray becomes four or five short sprigs. Short pieces are far easier to place than a whole branch, and they let you build the shape gradually instead of committing all at once.

Do not let taking the stems apart put you off. Worst case you lay several short pieces end to end and they read as one long branch again.

If you have two shades of green, alternate them as you go so the colours blend rather than sitting in blocks. Run a thick blob of hot glue on the underside of each sprig and press it down into the twigs, fanning them out from behind the bow in both directions.

Slip a few of the smallest sprigs in between the loops of the bow itself. This is a small move with a big payoff - it is what stops the bow and the greenery looking like two separate things stuck to the same ring.

Then let the ribbon tails down. Arrange them so they fall along one side of the wreath rather than straight down the middle, and trim each one at an angle if it is longer than you want.

To hang it, an over-the-door wire hook is the simplest option. Otherwise loop a length of ribbon through the back of the grapevine and tie it off. Because there is nothing seasonal on this wreath, it can stay up all year.