Boxwood Wreath tutorial (using items you already have)

How to put together a small boxwood wreath with materials that you already have around the house.

Step 1. I broke off little twigs from one of our grapevine wreath forms. You could really just go outside and collect a few little twigs though. 

Step 2. I took some floral wire and bent it into a nice little circle of the size that I wanted my boxwood wreath to be. I wrapped the wire around and around until I got an nice thickness of about a quarter of an inch. 

Step 3.  I broke the little twigs into pieces that were about 2 to 3 inches long and hot glued them stacked over each other, onto the floral wire circle, to make a small grapevine wreath form. You could just get yourself a ready-made one at the craft store, but when I went to do that I couldn't find one as small as I wanted it.

Step 4.  Now, you can get yourself some fresh boxwood clippings from your yard or some faux floral boxwood from the craft store, but I prefer preserved boxwood because the brightness of the leaves.  

****A couple of tips: If you do decide to use preserved boxwood clippings, make sure that you lightly mist them, with water, once per month to keep them from getting too dry or crispy. These preserved boxwood clippings can really last forever. Also be sure not to put them outside in the sunlight as that can burn them and they can begin to turn brown****

Step 3

For this particular wreath, I took off a few little clippings, here and there, from my large and medium-size boxwood wreaths that I already had from Target. I made sure to remove them from places that wouldn't be noticed when they were missing, leaving the original wreaths still looking just as full as before.

Step 5.  Get your handy-dandy hot glue gun ready again because all you really need to do is to go round and round your grapevine wreath form, gluing down the clippings.  Make sure to glue them all going in the same direction.

That's it!  That's how I made a virtually free boxwood wreath out of items that I already had around the house!  This size typically sells for about $18-$20, so all in all, I'm really excited to have not spent any extra money on this cute little addition to our 'farmhouse styled' tired tray!