It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
I love having plants and greenery in the house, and Christmas is certainly no exception.
Tom questions my vases of "twigs" (dried seedheads!), sprigs of Holly and endless houseplants but in the winter I just NEED themwhen there's nothing in the garden to keep my fingers green!
We both love real Christmas trees, but we've had a fake one for the past couple of years now.
I'm not a huge fan of it but it's big and fluffy and easier then a real one, plus I don't want to have a real one while we're renting. I keep thinking that when we eventually buy our own place and have our first Christmas it'll be much more special with our first real tree as well.
I do always buy a real wreath the first weekend of December to hang on the front door though. But this year there was so much holly and ivy surrounding the fields near around our new house it inspired me to make my own. I collected bags of it and bought two oasis rings before I spent the weekend at my Mum and Dad's house in Rutland.
The holly bushes near mine were a bit naked as the birds seemed to have eaten every single berry, so we decided to go foraging first for some colour and accessories for when we finished our wreaths.
We walked the dog down to the village park, dad was given the bag to hold and we got snipping! It was so nice and sunny, I love going down there as I spent most of my childhood summer holidays on the swings and catching crayfish in the river. I even had a quick go on the zip wire, though everything seems in miniature now.
When we got home we spread all the greenery over the table and put the kettle on.
I started mine off with sprigs of fir branches around the outside to make it really big and fluffy.
Then I started to fatten it up at the front with ivy and holly.
When I was happy with how spiky and chunky it looked I added sprigs of berries, tiny pine cones and seed heads to add a bit of colour and detailing.
More is definitely best with these as you want them to look as full as possible. We laughed at how many branches of greenery we had to start off with but after 20 minutes we were contemplating sending Dad back down to the park in the car to collect more!
It's something that you need a good couple of hours to do as you cant rush it, but with dad's carrot cake and christmas songs on the radio we really enjoyed it.
We both said they turned out better than expected and that this will definitely be a new Christmas traditon.
Next year I'm going to try and book us into an actual workshop and make a full day of it, but doing it at home is still just as fun and a good way of getting in the festive mood!
When I got mine back to my house I tied a big red ribbon on the top and hung it straight on my front door.
Handmade is always better than shop-bought, as long as you don't mind having scratched hands from all the holly.
I have permanently scratched hands from a very bitey puppy at the moment anyway, so what's a few more when there's christmas to prepare for!?
Gemma
xXx
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