How to Make a Spring Wreath

This might be the most favorite wreath that I have ever made. It’s a spring wreath, and most of you can make it from things you can gather in your backyard. Can you guess what this wreath is made from?

Pine cones. 

Cutting the pine cones into flowers is the hardest part of making this wreath. I used an old pair of tin snips but there might be a better cutting tool to use. (If you find one, let me know.) I was able to cut two flowers out of each pine cone and I didn’t use the top part. 

I had to cut around each side of the pinecone before I could cut all the way through. On a few occasions, the pinecone flower broke into a few pieces. But that was no problem as I just put them back together with a glue gun.

Each flower had two to three rows of scales. And I didn’t use the tops of the pinecones but there is no reason why you couldn’t.

It took me a few hours. Most pine cones netted two flowers. 

I used 25 pine cone flowers on my wreath. Of course, you may need more or less depending on the size grapevine wreath you use. (I used a 16″.)

Painting the pine cones was my favorite part. And this is the part where you need to be the most careful.

I have two really important color tips for you. So be sure to read below.

It’s easy to buy six small bottles of paint and paint the pine cones each color. But often that will result in a wreath that isn’t color cohesive. Can you tell the colors of the pine cones below were made from two colors and white? Anytime your color palette is created from two colors, all of your colors will be cohesive.  

I mixed six colors using Alizarin Crimson (burgundy) and Medium Yellow (and white) and put them in paper cups. These are the colors I ended up with. (I should have taken the photo before I added the highlights because some of them look more similar than they are.)

The next thing you need to do is paint all of your pine cones with a base coat. I painted six pine cones in each color. 

But here is the important step, I then went back and lightly brushed on some highlights of the other colors on each pine cone flower.This is what my pine cones looked like after I painted the first coat.

And here is how they looked with a highlight of one of the other colors. After they dried I added even another one of the colors.

Assembling the wreath is very easy. I had painted some smaller pine cones because I thought I might need them. But I ended up leaving them out.

I had some week old eucalyptus in vases (that had dried) and it worked perfectly. You can use any type of greenery, faux or real, or in my case, dried and neglected.

I stuck the stems of the eucalyptus into the wreath. Don’t use too much, just enough to offer light coverage.

Add in the greenery all the way around being sure to follow the same direction all the way around.

With a hot glue gun, attach the pinecones to the wreath.

That’s all it takes!I can’t wait to make more of these for fall and the holidays!