Dried Orange Slice Wreath

3 Materials
$15
6 Hours
Easy

Last Christmas my husband received a food dehydrator as a gift. He wanted it to prepare food items for camping, but of course I immediately saw it as a tool to be used for holiday decor items like wreaths and garland. So this year I finally made my first dried orange slice wreath.

I had small clementine oranges at the and before they disappeared I grabbed about five of them and cut them up in to very thin slices.

I had never used the dehydrator before so I followed what I had seen my husband do each time he had used it. I lined the first tray of the machine with parchment paper and placed the thin cut slices of oranges on top of that.


The next part was so easy. I just put the top lid over the tray, plugged in the machine, and walked away from it for about four hours.


That was all the time and energy it needed to make some beautiful dried orange slices.

Once they were done I could start to put my wreath inspiration together. The supplies included the dried orange slices, a grapevine wreath, garland ties from Dollar Tree, pine cones from my own yard (cleaned an baked of course) and ribbon with gold lettering of Merry Christmas and glitter.


And of course floral wire and my hot glue gun.


Every year I am blessed with hundreds of small pine cones in my yard so I get to use them often for craft projects, especially for the holidays. I soak them in bleach or vinegar for a few hours and then bake them in a low temp over for about 2 hours to kill off any insect eggs and to dry them out. This process can be see on my blog for several of my projects.


Just search for pine cones.

Since I wanted the wreath to have a holiday look, these garland ties from Dollar Tree were the perfect starting point for this wreath.


They just easily slid into the branches of the grapevine wreath and I secured them with hot glue as needed.


I had decided to put the bow to the left side of the wreath but honestly, once the wreath was done I could easily just twist it around and hang the wreath any way I wanted. Which is exactly what my daughter did once she took it home with her and hung it on her door.


I don't always get to keep the things I make for very long but at least she likes my projects.

Again using just the hot glue gun, I attached first the pine cones around the bow of the wreath and then as many dried orange slices as I could along the bottom and top curve of the wreath.


I know you usually attach a bow last, but this time I wanted to make sure I balanced the placement of the pine cones and the dried orange slices evenly around the bow.


A second tip I will share is that I also hung the wreath up on the wall while attaching the pine cones and dried orange slices so that I could get a more clear visual of how it would look as I worked on it.


Sometimes a wreath looks differently flat on a table than when you go to hang it. At least mine do sometimes, so I made this wreath while it was hanging up.


Same concept when people put them on a tripod to make as well.

In the end, the wreath was just what I envisioned. Festive and natural for the holidays - and smelled so good.


That is an added bonus of using dried orange slices, the aroma stays in the room for a few days.

I make wreath all year long but Christmas ones are some of my favorites. I have included a link below to a roundup of my previous Christmas wreaths.


As I mentioned, this one eventually went to my daughter's house about a week after I made it so I am glad she gets to enjoy it too.


I gave her a choice of the many Christmas wreaths already in my house, and she chose this one for the orange slices.

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Donna Powell
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  2 questions
  • Anita Anita on Dec 20, 2020

    Can they be dried in the oven, I don't have a dehydrator

  • Maruchi Maruchi on Dec 21, 2020

    What about ants and other bugs? Won’t they be attracted to the slices?

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 2 comments
  • Carolyn Carolyn on Dec 19, 2020

    Lovely!!

  • Sue Sue on Dec 20, 2020

    In AZ we have “ornamental”orange trees. Every year these inedible sour oranges fall to the ground & end up in the landfill. I’m going to gather some & try drying them to make wreaths with. Hope they w8ll give off the orange smell!

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