Eco Friendly Fall Decorative Wreath

 

Nature can come up with some wonderful decorating ideas, don't you think! A homemade, eco friendly fall decorative wreath using fresh foraged materials such as ornamental grasses and pine cones from your yard is a great natural way to make an entrance look welcoming or to spruce up an area in your home for Fall! It's certainly is a no cost or low budget and eco friendly option instead of using expensive, store bought items to decorate this time of year!

There are lots of ornamental bushes and pine trees in the back of my yard and along the berm of my community. I usually pick up pines cones by the bag full that have fallen during the winter months .  .  .

and cut off the plumes of the ornamental grass bushes this time of the year into early winter. The landscapers usually trim the ornamental grass bushes down to small mounds during the winter.  Right now, the ornamental bushes are really showing their beauty this time of year - especially when it's windy!

This ornamental grass bush happens to be in my yard, so I snipped off a few plumes especially for this project.

I love that this is an easy, almost free to make craft inspired by Nature! Perfect for this month's theme on Nature for our monthly Sustainable Craft Challenge that's hosted by Julie @Sum of their Stories!

Materials Used: 

• Grapevine wreath
• Ornamental grasses
• Pine Cones
• Wood Glue/Super Glue
• Snips or pruning shears, scissors
• Brown floral wire stems (24 gauge)

I wanted my wreath to be as natural as possible using a grapevine wreath I had in my stash, as a base. But I didn't want the fullness or thickness you usually see in a grapevine wreath. So .  .  .

I separated several smaller vines from the larger one and .  .  .

wrapped the vines together using very thin brown floral wire stems. 

The thinner grapevine looks so much better than using a thicker grapevine wreath or a wire or wood form or frame you often see that's not natural.

Next, begin laying out the individual plume design to the grapevine. First, one side and then the other.

Cut off excess stalks, once satisfied with the layout.

To secure the individual grass stalks on the grapevine wreath, dip ends into the wood glue bottle and .  .  .

insert/intertwine into the grapevines. Let dry.

Continue dipping each plume into the wood glue and inserting it into the grapevine .  .  .

until satisfied with the look and fullness.

The cool thing I discovered about working with ornamental grass plumes is that they become fuller - taking on a whole new shape as they dry out from clipping.

While the glue is drying on the plumes and grapevine, it's time to make natural pine cone flowers!

I collected these pine cones that had fallen to the ground last winter. I kept them in a trash bag in my garage. I did not clean them or put them in the oven as they recommend. I did check for bugs, etc., and didn't find any. However, there were clumps of sap along some of the pine cone scales (pine cone “leaves”) which I scraped off. 

I think you will be pleasantly surprised if you just take pruning shears or snips and cut the pine cone in a few sections, cutting horizontally across the cone  and 

  discovering a design similar to flowers! 

How cool are these!

Perfect to add between the ornamental grass plumes.

But wait! I wanted to see how a bow made out of a few of the leftover vines would look on the wreath!  First, placing a few vines in hot boiling water for a couple of hours to make them pliable.

And then, once pliable, removing the vines from the water - it's amazing how quickly they cooled off to shape them into a simple bow. I must say that boiling the vines turned the water a dark brown that turned the vines dark brown, too.

Then wrapping the center of the bow with a longer vine .  .  .

tucking the ends in between to keep the bow together.

And attaching it to the wreath! 

Do you like the wreath with a vine bow?

Yay or Nay?

I also added a few more pine cones to the center so you can see them better 

for an .  .  . 

 All Natural Fall Decorative Wreath!

This challenge is all about sustainable crafting! Each month is themed and all projects must have some sort of a sustainable element to them. This could be an upcycling or recycling element, or something that reduces waste, uses leftovers, etc. The theme for September is Nature!

Be sure to check out all the Nature Sustainable Crafts projects listed below:

Julie @Sum of their Stories - Mini Vases Upcycled From Yogurt Bottles

Vicky @Vicky Myers Creations - Cyanotype Art

Gail @Purple Hues and Me - Eco Friendly Fall Decorative Wreath

T'onna @Sew Crafty Crochet - Three-Strip Flower Scarf

Terri @Our Good Life - Pressed Flower Lantern

Maria @Simple Nature Decor - Sea Glass Candle Holder

Christine @Christine's Crafts - Flower Pounding on Paper - A Complete Beginners Guide

Mel @Decor Craft Design - DIY Fall Sign Gold Dried Leaves

Julie @ Treasures Made From Yarn - Upcycled Project Bag