An Asymmetrical Holiday Wreath DIY + Giveaway!

We got a little giveaway today, yay! We are a bit obsessed with Leanna from David and Leanna and her creations that we wanted to share the love with our beautiful readers! You all know her; she is the DIY queen. Any idea we come up with, and she is game. Today, its all about holiday wreaths. This year, Leanna and I came up with a little twist on the usual round Christmas wreath. We went for an asymmetrical look, and of course, it had to have some macrame + flowers. As much as we love the real flowers, those don’t last more than a couple days. And no one wants sad flowers hanging in their house for the holidays. Silk flowers are the way to go here, and they look so real!

Leanna is spilling her secrets on how she made this pretty little number for all of you to make just in time for the holidays. Plus, the colors on this wreath will allow you to leave up past Christmas and right on into the rest of winter. And, if you add a couple more flowers from the pink family, you have yourself a little valentine’s day decor.

Let’s chat about the giveaway fast! To enter, just like + follow @beijosevents and @davidandleanna. Then, tell us your favorite holiday DIY on the giveaway Instagram post. The winner will be announced on Monday, December 18th. Please, only the US location, as we would like to get it to you before the holiday season.

Also, if you are looking for the cutest printable tags, check out Leanna’s Etsy page here. I’m using these for my gifts this year.

Let’s get to that DIY now…

Back at it again with the ladies from Beijos Events to bring you an awesome DIY! So a lot of the time when people say “oh my gosh how did you make this?!” and I say “oh this!!? It’s easy, let me show you!!” … well, this is one of those projects that I’ll say is a little more complicated ;) BUT individually each piece is super approachable for the average crafter so if you’re up for a little bit of a challenge, then follow along!!

Otherwise, you can also just buy one here or here ;)

There are three significant steps to this project: 1. floral swag 2. macrame hanging 3. combining

FLORAL SWAG MATERIALS:

Your favorite Christmas greenery (I got mine at Michaels, and it’s ALL ON SALE)
Green florist wire
Hot glue + hot glue gun

FLORAL SWAG ASSEMBLY

Choose your base floral – a simple pine is what I chose because it had a lot of structure to build off of and wasn’t the “feature” color.

*Note: I almost always lay out my entire piece without gluing/connecting to begin just to make sure I have the balance right.

Using your florist wire, wrap two long pieces together, so they are facing opposite directions.

Add your next layer of “base” using the same method as above.

Next, I added my large “focus” pieces – the large flowers. I cut them from their original stems, but left about an inch of original stem to use to wrap around my “base.”

I reinforced the connection between the flowers and the base using florist wire.

Next, I then added my larger filler elements (these gold twigs) – again using the same florist wire method.

Next came smaller filler elements – these velvety green leaves. I hot glued these in place. With these I entirely removed them from the “base” they came on – they should just pop right off with a good tug.

Medium pink flowers were next. These came in a “bunch” so I cut each flower, leaving a small stem to work with. These were hot glued in place.

Even smaller flowers were added using the same method. All up, I used seven different types of florals in this piece – 2 base green stems, one large focus flower stem, two small flower stems, one medium flower stem of an accent color, and one structural stem in an accent color.

Phew! Next section: Macrame!!

MACRAME HANGING MATERIALS:

Macrame thread
Dowel
Metallic Acrylic paint
Scissors

MACRAME INSTRUCTIONS:

Cut your dowel to your desired length and paint with your choice of acrylic metallic paint (or leave natural) – set aside to dry.

Cut between 30 and 35 strands of macrame twine at 26″ in length.

We are going to start with a “Larks Knot”: fold one of your lengths of twine in half and wrap over your dried dowel.

Pull the tail through the loop and pull tight.

Repeat until you reach your desired width for you macrame hanging.

Here is where things get a little dicey – pull your furthest left strand apart from the rest of your hanging. Try to think of this strand from here on out as your new dowel. This is no longer a string – it is the “dowel” you are tying your other strings onto. If you pull on this string as though you are tying your shoes – pulling each strand evenly, you will not get the results you want.

Pull the leftmost string all the way across your piece – remember it’s your new dowel. We will do double half hitch knots all the way across.

Grab the next leftmost string – this is the string you will be knotting first – make a “four” (the same made by the two strings crossing) with the leftmost string on top.

String the second most left strand through the loop of the four made by the leftmost string. WHEW – you got that? Slowly synch them both up together – at the top remember you are knotting the second leftmost string ONTO the left most string – ideally you’ll be pulling tightly on the second string while simply holding the leftmost string in place.

Do this TWICE with each string. The second leftmost string is done after it has knotted onto the leftmost (aka “new dowel”) string. Repeat with the next string in line making your way left to right. Your “dowel string” stays the same – this is the string you will knot all the rest of the strands onto.

This took me many many tries to get right when I first started doing macrame so don’t be discouraged!! It takes practice and patience!! The beautiful thing is you can ALWAYS pull the knots out and try again – which I have done countless times.