Our little home is slowly filling up with nature-inspired projects and crafts in preparation for Valentine’s day (February 14th). We’ve made heart shaped seed bombs to share with our friends, heart shaped birdseed ornaments to share with the birds, heart window transparencies to decorate our windows and these beautiful heart shaped wreaths to hang on our doors.
This heart shaped wreath is very inexpensive to make. Most people have a wire coat hanger lurking in their closet, some yarn or twine stuffed in a drawer and access to the great outdoors. If you don’t have floral wire, I highly recommend buying some for this project. I spent a few dollars on a small pool of 25 gauge wire and even after making several wreaths I have plenty wire leftover for other projects.
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Is this project kid friendly?
Making this heart wreath is a bit tricky for little hands. I would say that it’s a great project for a parent and child to do together. An older child (10+) or teen should be able do this project with a little to no assistance.
How do I forage for wreath making material?
At first glance it may seems like there isn’t much to forage in the wintertime, but there is! I suggest going on a nature walk with your child. Walk around your yard, down the street, or along a trail. Look for things like evergreen branches, dried grasses, berries, rosehips, seed pods, pinecones etc. Bring some scissors and collect only what you will use. If nature cuttings are not an option look for nature material that is laying on the ground. Just make sure you’re following any foraging rules in your area.
Materials
- Wire coat hanger
- Floral wire (gauge 22 to 25 works best)
- Wire cutters
- Scissors
- Twine, jute twine or natural fiber yarn
- Foraged nature material: evergreen branches, dried grasses, berries, seed pods, pinecones etc.
Instructions
- Start by shaping the wire coat hanger into a heart. Hold the top the of the hanger with one hand and pull the lower wire down to make the bottom “V” of the heart. Bend the sides in and push the top down to make the top of the heart. Don’t worry if your heart shape isn’t perfect.
- Using jute, twine or thick natural yarn, wrap the hanger. This step is optional but it does make the finished wreath look much nicer.
- Using the foraged materials make a small bundle with several nature items. I like to make my bundles about 6 to 8 inches long and combine two or three items with different textures and colours. For example. a piece of blue spruce, cedar branch and Oregon grape make a nice combination . There’s no right or wrong strategy.
- Twist a 6 inch pieces of floral wires at the end of each nature bundle leaving about 1 to 2 inches untied so that you can attach the bundle to the hearth frame.
- Attach the bundles to the heart frame starting from the top left of the heart near the hook. Make sure the bundle ends pointing downward so that you overlap the bundles and hide the wire where they attach. Also, it helps to use a second pieces of wire to attach the each bundle around the midway point.
- Then add greenery bundles from the top right of the heart working down to the bottom.
- Step back and see if your wreath needs any adjusting. Add greenery, wire, pinecones and whatever else you’d like and adjust the heart wreath until you’re happy with the result. Hang and enjoy!
Problem Solutions and Tips
The greenery is falling off or spinning around the wire.
To solve these problems make sure that you are twisting the floral wire tightly around the bundle ends and tightly around the heart frame. Twist that wire tight! Also, add more wire to hold the bundles on snuggly. For each bundle I use two 6 inch pieces of wire. One at the bottom of each bundle and one in the middle of each bundle.
My heart wreath doesn’t look like a heart.
Try bending the hanger wire back into a heart shape. If the wire shape is good then you may need to trim some greenery with scissors or use extra wire to tie the greenery more snuggly to the frame.
How do I make the wreath last longer.
To make your heart wreath last longer give it a soak in a cold bath for 12 to 24 hours before you hang it up.
Don’t throw away the wreath!
Don’t toss your heart wreath in the bin when it has died up. It’ll only take a few minutes to take it apart. This way you can reuse the wire frame and floral wire, and compost the foraged materials.
Coat Hanger WreathDIYForaged WreathHeart WreathNature CraftTutorialValentineValentine's DayWreath
