I love a good holiday wreath for the front door. And two is twice as nice! I have never hung one in our current house because I didn’t want to create holes in my doors or damage the paint. I finally discovered what many of you probably already know- there are now sticky hooks that do no damage! This unlocks so many options for throughout the year for door decor.
I wanted to create a front door holiday style like the wonderful Chris Loves Julia team, and was going for something like this:
For under $12, I rounded up some supplies and got to work. If this wasn’t a COVID pandemic year, I would have shopped around some for fluffier, more realistic artificial wreaths or gone for a smaller live wreath. But shopping options are pretty limited for me this year, so I wanted to get to one store in a quick trip to get everything I needed. Joann’s was the place!
I stopped this weekend and grabbed some 2 1/2 inch ribbon and 1 1/2 inch ribbon, both black and white prints (a little clashy but I like the look). I found two 18 inch artificial wreaths on sale for $2.99 each. All in, the materials cost me about $12.
If you don’t have a Joann’s nearby, here are some wired ribbons from Amazon and some wreath options that can be delivered to you.
More ideas:
I’ve also found some very affordable live wreath options, which I talk about in this article: Affordable Holiday Wreaths and Garland | Design | Style | Love. Maybe next year I will do this with live wreath.
To dress these up, I started by making some simple bows.
To make the ribbons, start by taking a strip of wired ribbon. Your first cut will be the length of the ribbon you’d like, doubled up in length. You’ll glue the ends together to make a loop. The next cut will be of a length slightly less than the first cut, so that there are two loops, one slightly larger than the other. It will look like this:
Next, you’ll cut a length of your ribbon about 3 inches long. This will be folded in 1/3 and another fold of a 1/3, to glue together the edges along the back.
Folding this over the two loops creates the bow. You trim off any excess foldover.
Another cut of ribbon about 24 inches long, folded over and hot glued will be the legs or trail of the bow. You can fluff up the bows a bit before connecting to the wreath. I connected my bow to my wreath with small precut light gauge floral wire.
My discovery (that maybe I was slow to learn!) was that 3M Command Strips won’t leave marks on the paint. You can find these at the $1.00 store, or at Home Depot or Amazon. Here is an online option:
I wanted the ribbon to come over the door top, so as not to see the hook (even in my inspiration picture you can see the command hook, which I was trying to avoid). I hung a command strip upside down at the top of the inside of my front door. Also, if it does damage the paint it will be at the very top of the door and easy to touch up and not see.
Next, I tied the ribbon that I used to hang the wreaths through the wreath and tied off the ends. I hung it off the upside down Command Strip and adjusted it so that it laid correctly on the outside. After a little length adjustments, they look very cheery. Not bad for pandemic decor in under $12!
