Hi. My name is Annie.
I work for the Dutch Flower Shop, and I'm here at the beautiful Sudley House
to show you how to make a Victorian, traditional, Christmas wreath.
To start off with,
you will need some reel wire and some strong scissors.
A wreath that we've got premade already,
some mixed eucalyptus, some gold asparagus fern, some red berries.
We've got some green wired ribbon,
some gold baubles, some thistle, and some cinnamon sticks.
So first of all, what we need to do is, we need to make our bundles to wire through.
So if we just take a selection of a few stems, I've started off with some eucalyptus,
some gold asparagus fern, some thistle, and I'll just add some more asparagus fern.
This is where you'll need your wire.
If you just wrap it tightly around the stems
to create a tight bundle to pop through,
make sure you've got enough length to wrap around the wreath
cut off your stems.
Make sure it's all clear at the bottom below the wire.
Make sure it's secure and then pop it through.
Keep repeating that process with a couple of different stems.
Check where you're placing it to make
sure it all falls in line and pop that one through.
Making sure the wire's nice and secure.
Just as you go around keep placing it just before you wire. Just to check
it's going in the right place just so you can see your shape.
So as you're getting towards the end,
you just want to fill in any other gaps you've got.
But as you get towards this last little
piece, you want to lift up what you've done already.
Thread that bit through and wire through,
making sure not to trap any of that greenery.
So just checking that everything’s secure
Checking you're happy with everything where you want it placed.
Now we've got to the end of our wreath
take your ribbon,
take a really long piece, and then once we get to this bit
you want to check, how long you want your tails to be.
Make a figure of eight, almost, half of one fist.
Fold it towards yourself so you've got
a loop and then do exactly the same again back the other way.
You can either leave it like, that where you've got your single bow or keep going,
which I want a double bow. You want to scrunch the bow in the middle
and make sure it's the right size for your wreath.
So where you've bunched it in the middle, you want to get your wire,
move some of it over back around, wrap it around and then
push your bow up
so it's out of the way.
And when you're here
pinch it, twist as tight as you can go.
Cut enough wire to wrap around your wreath
Aim to go right through the middle of your wreath.
You will struggle to push through some branches.
But it's just so your bow sits exactly in the centre, so wrap it around
a few times.
And then when you get get to… so you’ve got about two inches left.
Wrap it around the base of your bow so it's nice and secure in place.
So pull all your loops so they're nice and rounded.
So on my wreath I've cut my ribbon on an angle,
but you can either fold them in half and cut upways or downways to get a pleat
or a V, or keep them like me and traditional with the angles.
So with our baubles, we want to take off this top piece,
which you can either glue on if you've got a hot glue gun and thread through the little
piece at the top or wrap around like we're going to do.
Pull some wire, hold it tight, wrap around and exactly like we did on the bow.
You want to pinch
and twist
to make it nice and secure.
Place where you want your bubbles to go and thread through.
Next is the cinnamon sticks
so you want to keep these in threes again,
take your wire and this time wrapping it over in the middle
and again, just place where you think they'll look best
and watch the greenery that you've already wired on.
Just the same again, for your next three.
Watch the greenery that you've already wired on.
So you want to cut
enough for your tie, make sure it's right above your bow.
Threading it through behind everything again.
Take the two ends, tie it in a knot.
You want to pull your knot right down
to the base so you can't see it keeping sure it's in line with your bow.
You just want to get some wire and wire around the knot to keep it in place,
I need everything to be perfectly and straight, ready to hang on our door.
So we've gone with the gold glittery
bauble to complement the gold asparagus fern, along with the eucalyptus
to add the texture we've got
the traditional with the cinnamon sticks and the thistle.
We've then kept it Victorian with our
velvet green ribbon for our tie and our bow.
I'm really pleased with it
I hope you are too
I'm going to go and hang this on our front door.