Winter Birch Wood Wreath

 I am a HUGE fan of having a wreath on my front door. My door is plain and white, and anything that adds a pop of colour or some interest to this bland entryway is GREAT in my books!

Since I don't have anything to keep on the door past Christmas, I decided it was time to make a new wreath. Just in time for the Celebration of Winter Blog Hop, I designed this  birch wood winter wreath.

Materials:

Birch Branches
Mitre Saw
Air Stapler
Wood Glue
Decorations of your choice!
Glue gun

Here are my dogs, modelling with a couple of birch branches :)

Step one was to decide how big I wanted the wreath, my branches were fairly narrow, so I decided that 5" on each edge would be big enough. Then you have to cut the wood pieces. Originally I was going for an octagon, so I had my husband cut the pieces at a 22.5 degree angle (set on saw in picture below).

We cut one side of the birch branch, then flipped the branch and marked 5" from the outside edge. Then we cut the wood at the same angle, so both the cuts went inward. We did this 8 times (and then later had to add a 9^th piece!).

When we put the pieces together, the angles fit perfectly! But I neglected to think about the fact that the wood was in "wonky" shapes (i.e. not perfectly straight - eek!) so the pieces fit nicely together, but didn't quite close the wreath circle. To fix this, we measured the distance that was missing (another 5") and cut one last piece at the same angles that fit in perfectly!

Once all the pieces were lined up and appeared to fit nicely together, it was time to attach them. To do this I put glue on each side of the wood pieces, and used the air stapler to pop a staple into the wood from each outside edge of the wood pieces (each corner had two staples).

Since we added an extra edge, the wreath isn't perfectly symmetrical, but I think I like it even better! I love the rustic, natural, imperfect feel of the piece.

Once the wreath was done, all I had to do was decorate it!

I used deep purple accents because I thought they still had a nice wintery feel. I used, purple flowers, twigs, purple raffia, and burlap to create my decorations. I simply attached everything with a glue gun and my beautiful winter wreath was good to go!

Last step was to hang it on the door! I did this by wrapping some deep purple raffia around a strip of burlap, and then tying a knot in the two together. I'm thrilled with how it turned out!

I LOVE that I can see the bark, and the knots in the wood, and the imperfections. What's not to love about this rustic piece?!

Please visit some of the other amazing blogs on this Celebration of Winter Blog Hop!

Please click on the Thumbnails below to see all the

projects being shared on:

*{Please note, daily links will not show until 6am EST}

Wednesday, Jan 21st Celebration of Winter Participants
Thursday, Jan 22nd Celebration of Winter Participants

Friday, Jan 23rd Celebration of Winter Participants

{xoxo}