After falling in love with my 4th of July Clothespin Wreath, I really wanted to do a Christmas one for the holidays. This one was so much fun to make and I’m so happy with how it turned out! Since I’m a visual learner, I took lots of snaps of each step to help you along the way. Here’s how to make your own Christmas holiday wreath.

What you’ll need:

• 12″ Wire Wreath. These are sold in the florist section of any craft store for less than $3 or you can pick up on Amazon.
• 70 Clothespins (give or take one or two). Walmart and Target both sell packs of 50 but I prefer the Target brand clothespins which are much better quality and they are also a bit longer. Packs of 50 are sold at Target for $1.79 or at Walmart for $1.
• Emerald Green & Hunter Green spray paint. I went with Krylon Indoor/Outdoor since I wanted something to hang outside. I went with two shades of green instead of one to make it look like a real fir or holly wreath and give it that depth of color. I went with emerald green and hunter green in Krylon Gloss. They cost about $3.50 a can at Walmart. You’ll have a ton left over so keep that in mind for future projects or you can always plan on making an extra wreath to give as a gift. 🙂
• Decorative glitter balls. I found a bag of cute decorative container glitter balls (picture of bag below) for $7.99 at Michaels. The center is foam so it made it very easy to glue onto the wreath and didn’t weigh it down. You could also use little red beads, fake red holly berries, or mini glass ornaments. Another cute idea is to use those fake large Christmas lights and glue all over. You can definitely have fun with the decoration!
• Premade Christmas bow or buy ribbon and make your own. Pick whatever bow or ribbon to make a bow that you like. I fell in love with this gold crinkly ribbon and made my own bow but it was a tough choice because Michael’s always has so many cute Christmas ribbons in stock.
• Red Ribbon to hang the wreath. Any ribbon will do but I picked up some pretty red satin ribbon that was about 1/2″ wide. You just want to make sure it’s thick and strong enough to hold up the wreath.
• Hot glue gun & hot glue

Directions:

Spray painting time! I suggest working outside and laying down some cardboard so you can just throw your items on it and spray to your heart’s content. If your wire wreath is already green then no need to spray paint it but if it’s a white wire wreath then I suggest spraying it green so the white doesn’t show through.

Spray Paint Clothespins: You’ll need 35 emerald green and 35 hunter green clothespins. Since not every wire wreath and clothespin is identical, the total number needed might be off by one or two clothespins so I suggest making two extra of each color just in case. The clothespins come pre-clipped to a piece of cardboard so I left them attached and sprayed the uglier of the two sides first, let dry 10 minutes or so (or until no longer tacky), gave it another quick coat, let dry another 10 minutes or so, then sprayed the prettier side with 5-6 coats, drying 10 minutes in between. What you want is for a solid colored clothespin that is nicely coated and very glossy. Be sure you rotate the clothespins and spray at various angles to get the sides and crevices nice and coated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assembly Time: Now that your clothespins are ready, it’s time to put it all together. You’ll notice that your wreath is basically four rings. You’ll be attaching clothespins to the center two rings which I’ll call #2 and #3 if you’re looking at the wreath from top to bottom.

Pick a starting point (See below picture and start top and center and move to the right of the wire divider) and pick either emerald green or hunter green to start with. I like the look of having the emerald green toward the back and the darker hunter green toward the front but it’s up to you if you prefer to have the lighter and brighter green up front. If you look at the four rings from top down, clip your first clothespin (hunter green) to the 2nd ring.

With your second clothespin (emerald green), clip it to the 3rd ring. Then keep going back and forth with hunter green on the 2nd ring and emerald green on the 3rd all the way around. You’ll go all the way around the wire wreath until you’re done.

Add Ribbon: Cut a 17″ piece of red ribbon and hot glue or tie around the back wire part of the wreath.

Hot Glue Time: It’s time for gluing! Work from the back and glue any loose clothespins to the back wire part of the wreath or at the bottom of the clothespins themselves, just to secure them on to the wire wreath. This is especially important if you plan on hanging the wreath outside. After you’ve glued down the clothespins, it’s time to glue the decorative red glitzy balls. You can go as crazy as you want with the red balls but I chose to glue to only the hunter green clothespins and alternate with gluing one ball to the top of the clothespin and the next to the bottom and so on. You can certainly do more or less to suit your taste.

Helpful Tip: Notice those nasty hot glue cobwebs? A very quick and easy way to get rid of them is to blow dry them away. Take your hair dryer and apply heat to any offending cobwebs and they will shrink back up, essentially disappearing. Just be careful not to apply too much heat or it could remelt the glue you want to stay stuck. 

Attach Bow: Finish by gluing or tying on your bow to the bottom of the wreath.

All finished! Just hang indoors or outdoors and you’re ready for Santa Claus! I hope you enjoy and if you end up making this wreath and want to share a picture, I’d love to make a cute collage on this post. Feel free to send me a private message with a picture or email me at missbutterbean(at)gmail.com. Merry Christmas!